Use & Optimization News

How to Enhance EHR Use Measures to Mitigate Clinician Burnout

Scientifically tracking EHR use measures could improve clinician well-being and ultimately mitigate clinician burden.

EHR Use Measure Burnout

Source: Getty Images

By Christopher Jason

- To effectively boost EHR optimization and reduce clinician burnout, healthcare stakeholders must develop EHR use measures that are actionable, usable, transparent, and trustworthy, according to a JAMA Network op-ed from American Medical Association and Yale School of Medicine leaders.

Scientific-based methods could effectively track EHR use and performance, op-ed authors Christine Sinsky from the AMA, and Harlan Krumholz and Edward Melnick, both from Yale, wrote.

Extended EHR use, documentation, excessive EHR inbox messages and notifications, and other EHR usability issues can result in clinician burnout. According to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), ambulatory physicians spend more than five hours on the EHR for every eight hours of scheduled patient time.