A July 20 study published in JAMIA found that higher levels of EHR stress were associated with higher levels of burnout among physicians in all specialties.
Researchers gathered feedback from 627 physicians at UC San Diego Health to analyze the relationship between burnout and stress related to EHR work and found the following:
- Physicians who used support staff to screen and triage patient MyChart messages were not associated with lower odds of burnout compared to physicians directly receiving MyChart messages.
- Physician burnout was associated with prescription authorization message volumes. Physicians who received more prescription authorizations had higher odds of burnout.
- Physicians with an increase in perceived EHR stress had 1.15 times greater odds of burnout.
The study authors concluded that perceived EHR stress and prescription reauthorization messages are significantly associated with burnout, but that non-EHR factors "such as not feeling valued or aligned in values with clinic leaders" were also important contributing factors to increased physician burnout.