Page 23 - Layout 1

STRESSED OUT

for Professional Worklife, gathers volunteers
from each department to discuss the best ways
the organization can address physician
burnout.

One of their ideas was to create a “reset
room” where physicians and other health pro-
fessionals can retreat if they need a moment to
recover from a traumatic event or just to get
away for a moment. And this is just one of sev-
eral ways Hennepin is helping their physicians.

A reset room is very much in line with Dr.
Shanafelt’s recommendation that, in order to
address burnout properly, the solutions have to
be numerous, yet organizations and physicians
alike must recognize that those fixes will not
solve physician burnout overnight. They
should be directed at giving physicians the skill
set to “navigate the choppy water,” he said,
with the understanding that the organization
needs to do its part to mitigate the systemic
and environmental issues that cause burnout.

Electronic health record (EHR) systems are
among these systemic issues. Almost one-half
of the physician work day is spent on EHR
data entry and other administrative desk work,
according to a recent time-motion study con-
ducted by the AMA and Dartmouth-Hitch-
cock Health Care System. Only 27 percent of
a physician’s time is spent on direct clinical
care, the study points out.

Another key finding in the study is that for
every hour of face-to-face time with patients,
physicians spend nearly two additional hours
on their EHR and clerical desk work.

Physicians entered medicine to help patients.
Anything that is getting in the way of patient
care, whether it is systemic or environmental,
should be the focus of change.

If you have conducted research on physician
health and wellness, the American Conference
on Physician Health™, which takes place
Sept. 28-29 in San Francisco, is open for pres-
entation submissions. Review the submission
guidelines and email your abstract proposal to
physicianhealth@ama-assn.org.

visit us at www.bcms.org 23