A recent study identified two factors that can reduce primary care physician burnout — and neither involves additional training or value-based compensation.
The study, published Nov. 5 in JAMA Network Open, surveyed 10,513 family physicians about burnout using the American Board of Family Medicine's continuous certification questionnaire between Dec. 1, 2016, and Oct. 24, 2023.
The study found that more time spent on EHR activities at home is associated with greater burnout. For every eight hours of patient-scheduled time, primary care physicians spend more than seven hours on EHR tasks, according to a Nov. 5 editorial.
Here are four factors that contribute to or reduce physician burnout:
- Appropriate time spent on EHR at home and high team efficiency was associated with reduced burnout.
- Physician collaboration with a registered nurse was associated with high team efficiency and less EHR work at home, while greater collaboration with a physician assistant was associated with more appropriate home EHR time.
- Physicians do not need more EHR training, since more report high EHR proficiency. There was also no association between EHR proficiency and burnout.
- Value-based compensation was associated with more time in the EHR at home and lower team efficiency.
"These findings suggest that clinical leaders and policymakers should focus on optimizing primary care team support and family physicians' EHR experiences to enhance the sustainability of primary care practice," the study authors wrote.