Forty-four percent of physicians report that they are burned out, and in an effort to address the issue sweeping the profession, the American Medical Association recently released a guide detailing tips to eliminate and reduce unnecessary work burdens.
"While burnout manifests in individuals, it originates in systems," Christine Sinsky, MD, vice president of professional satisfaction at the AMA, is quoted as saying in the guide.
Outlined below are four key takeaways from the guide and an AMA article about time-saving practices:
- Seek out and advocate for team-based approaches to care, which will improve continuity and delegate tasks.
- Prioritize the simplification of medication management for patients to improve team workflows.
- Actively engage with hospital and health system IT teams to advocate for better inbox management, which can often be a time suck for physicians. As the AMA states, "Many inbox messages do not need to enter the inbox in the first place, and of those messages that should enter the inbox, the majority do not need to be routed to the physician."
- Involve leadership in the conversation and be armed with numbers to explain the need for prioritization of time-saving efforts.