Cloud-based EHR giant athenahealth will have a big footprint at the upcoming HIMSS21 Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas August 9-13. The vendor will highlight the ways in which its connected networks and platforms are designed to help healthcare provider organizations run efficient, effective organizations, and provide high-quality care to their patients.

Visitors to the athenahealth booth (No. 2254) will find original research discussions, product overviews and demonstrations, and opportunities to network with industry thought leaders. Some of the specific themes the vendor's experts will address include:

Improving the clinician experience. Topics include: the athenaOne Mobile App; best practices to build resilience and combat provider burnout and how organizational change impacts physicians theater presentations; the importance of giving clinicians actionable insights at the point of care theater presentation; and using network insights to improve the clinical documentation experience theater presentation.

Addressing health disparities. On August 11 from 10-11 a.m., Jessica Sweeney-Platt, vice president of research and editorial strategy, and Jessica Boland, director of behavioral health at Esperanza Health Center, an FQHC in Chicago, will present an educational session entitled Behavioral Health Disparities: The Unsung Epidemic.

Boosting financial performance. Topics include how to lead your organization through a time of change theater presentation; the economic advantage of clinical data exchange with payers theater presentation; and gamification in revenue cycle management for better outcomes and staff engagement and productivity theater presentation and demo.

Improving the patient experience. Topics include using telehealth to deliver a seamless patient care experience and strengthen patient/provider relationships, theater presentation and demo, and using network insights to drive a better patient experience, theater presentation.

To dig deeper into improving the clinician experience, the athenaOne Mobile App and recently released athenaOne with Dictation powered by Nuance, best practices to build resilience and combat provider burnout, and the importance of giving clinicians actionable insights at the point of care, Healthcare IT News sat down with athenahealth's Sweeney-Platt.

Q. Why is improving the clinician experience a priority in healthcare today?

A. In addition to the perennial pain points of clunky workflows, incomplete patient information and legacy software, the industry also is wrestling with the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the clinician community.

Burnout continues to be a huge concern. In fact, 28% of physicians report feeling burned out at least once a week, according to athenahealth's recent Physician Sentiment Index. Administrative tasks, too little time with patients and onerous regulatory compliance requirements top the list of primary contributors to dissatisfaction.

Healthcare organizations should attend to their clinician experience with the same level of care and intention as their patient experience for a variety of reasons. Reducing administrative tasks and managing information overload is critical for patient care quality and physician wellbeing – and benefits the entire practice or health system.

For instance, providing clinicians with technology that delivers access to the information and capabilities they need to take care of patients during the encounter – without adding extra work – can make the process less onerous for the clinician, and can also help them identify care gaps that they can close in the moment.

Streamlining administrative tasks and giving clinicians more time in the day to do such things as focus on care delivery, collaborate with colleagues and follow up on items that require more information can also lead to improved clinician satisfaction.

And by increasing care team satisfaction, practices may be able to reduce unwanted clinician turnover. Given the looming shortage of clinical talent, anything and everything we can do to keep talented clinicians can reduce operational disruption and recruitment expenses and make a positive impact on the practice's reputation and bottom line.

Q. How can the athenaOne Mobile App and recently released athenaOne with Dictation powered by Nuance help improve the clinician experience?

A. These solutions are focused squarely on supporting providers within ambulatory care practices and health systems and meeting their growing needs for more efficient, positive experiences in healthcare.

The athenaOne Mobile App allows clinicians to get meaningful clinical work done whenever and wherever they are. Providing the ability to access patient records to prepare for and document exams, create and sign orders, respond to patient cases and more, the app gives users the flexibility to catch up on or get ahead of work during free moments throughout their day.

AI and machine learning help process thousands of clinical documents per provider per month and learn from their behaviors to surface relevant information in the workflow.

athenaOne Dictation, powered by Nuance, enables clinicians to document patient encounters quickly, accurately and in real time, without needing to touch a keyboard. Users can take advantage of fully integrated, voice-driven capabilities that help clinicians save time, improve documentation accuracy and boost physician satisfaction.

athenaOne Dictation supports a personalized clinical care documentation experience across desktop and mobile devices and allows clinicians to give more time, empathy, context and personalized care to their patients, which is why the majority became practitioners.

According to one customer, Dr. Angela Ammon, a family medicine specialist at Valley View Hospital: "The athenaOne Mobile App with dictation has helped me capture my patients' stories much more thoroughly, and my assessments now reflect more complex thinking and differential diagnoses. I use it all the time to dictate during the patient encounter without taking my focus from them, and they are finding that the treatment plan, and instructions are more memorable."

Q. What are a couple best practices to build resilience and combat provider burnout?

A. Clinicians commit themselves to delivering superior patient care, and our Physician Sentiment Index findings suggest that when they have a strong support system and proactive technical training, and can collaborate effectively with colleagues, it can lead to an increased focus on patient care and higher staff morale.

In organizations that take on a team-based primary care model – where physicians and allied health professionals take collective responsibility for a population of patients – clinicians are far more likely to report positive opinions of their colleagues and more collaboration with other clinicians, and to rate their organization's leadership more positively in general.

Physicians who work in team-based models also are more likely to say their organization supports social determinant needs and gives them more time to focus on patient care by minimizing administrative tasks.

Further, minimizing administrative burden and after-hours work can help physicians feel more satisfied and less rushed, with more than half of respondents agreeing that technology supports their ability to deliver high-quality care to patients.

It is an enormous job to manage and distill the patient data and clinical notes that are available, so healthcare technology used should curate both the quantity and quality of information that a clinician must process to minimize the manual effort required to integrate information from multiple sources.

To continue to provide high-quality care, organizations must support clinicians by fostering a culture in which they feel safe, supported, able to share opinions freely and part of a well-run practice.

Q. You've talked about the importance of giving clinicians actionable insights at the point of care. Why is this important to improving the clinician experience?

A. Clinicians face a deluge of information every single day. The body of clinical knowledge grows every day. Regulatory and payer requirements are complex, change often and are different for each patient that they see. And they all too often have to navigate a lot of unnecessary and irrelevant information in prepping for each patient visit. "Note bloat" isn't just a catchy rhyme. It really can be hard to separate the signal from the noise.

So having actionable insights at the point of care means that clinicians are spending less time figuring out "what matters" and more time deciding "what's best for this patient." Instead of wading through an unprioritized clinical inbox, a smart inbox could serve up the most important things that the clinician needs to act upon.

A smart EHR will be able to inform the care team that a patient needs a screening test in time to queue up the order before the visit. A smart EHR also will make it easier to accurately code for risk factors, which is critical for financial performance.

Point-of-care insights also make it easier for providers to proactively address patient needs within their workflows – facilitating care management discussions with their patients. It also means clinicians can focus on the patient in the visit and strengthen their connections through more engaged encounters. By providing an enhanced patient experience, the clinician creates a more satisfied and loyal patient base, which in turn makes the clinician a more attractive choice to new patients.

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bsiwicki@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.