Burnout is the outcome of an overwhelming workload, long hours spent at work and stressful activities. Even before the challenges brought about by COVID-19, clinician burnout was on the rise. A 2019 report by Medscape on Global Physicians’ Burnout and Lifestyle Comparisons which surveyed almost 20,000 doctors in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States revealed that on average almost one in three feel burned out (27%) with 19% of the surveilled perceiving the burnout as severe enough to think about leaving medicine. Now in 2020, as the world navigates a global pandemic, it is more important than ever for healthcare systems to share lessons learned on how to mitigate the causes and effects of burnout.

Speech recognition to ease the grip of burnout

Ultimately burnout is effectuated by a lack of time, which is brought about by multiple factors. An increase in the load of extensive documentation and other bureaucratic tasks are major contributors. Here, health technology can be both part of the problem and part of its solution. Updating the electronic health record, for example, can be complex and time-consuming but integrating it with clinical speech recognition speeds-up navigation as well as streamlines the clinical documentation process. To augment doctors’ productivity and give them more time to care for patients, technology must align with clinical workflow – not the other way around. By empowering workforce-centric processes, digitisation lessens the grip of burnout.

Learnings from the frontline experience

As part of HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Digital Event, a panel of European healthcare and technology leaders will propose evidence-based governance and some initiatives to address the issue of burnout in the session 'Addressing Clinicians' Burnout: Creating a Workforce Centric Approach to Digitisation' on 8 September 2020, from 10.00-10.45am CEST. Dr Charles Alessi, Chief Clinical Officer, HIMSS, will be moderating the panel that includes Dr Simon Wallace, Chief Clinical Information Officer, Nuance, Helen Gyves, Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, University Hospitals Birmingham, UK, Prof Dr Felix Balzer, ECDF-Professor for E-Health and Shared Decision Allocation at Einstein Center Digital Future and Charité – Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany, and Dr Fredrik Jonsson, Chief Medical Information Officer, Region Skåne, Sweden.

The session will highlight how clinicians can be involved in technology choices and deployments to ensure that innovation supports medical staffs’ mission to care for patients rather than adding a layer of administrative complexity to their workflow.

Join the session during the HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Digital Conference (7–11 September 2020). Click here for further information and to register.