5 Topic Commentaries

Top 10 Contributors to Physician Burnout

• 

  Tait Shanafelt, MD

  Hematology/Oncology

  •

  Mayo Clinic

  “Although electronic health records, electronic prescribing, and computerized physician order entry have been touted as ways to improve quality of care, these tools also create clerical burden, cognitive burden, frequent interruptions and distraction — all of which can contribute to physician burnout,” Dr. Shanafelt says.

  Source
• 

  Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH

  Internal Medicine, Public Health

  •

  Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

  “The growth in poorly designed digital health records and quality metrics has required that physicians spend more and more time on tasks that don’t directly benefit patients, contributing to a growing epidemic of physician burnout,”

  Source
• 

  Roy C. Ziegelstein, MD

  Cardiology

  •

  Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

  “The amount of documentation required for every admission and discharge is huge.”

  Source
• 

  Francis A. Farraye, MD, MS

  Gastroenterology

  •

  Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida

  “Burnout has been identified as a factor in clinicians' decisions to reduce hours and leave medical practice, so identifying factors contributing to high EHR burden is a very important endeavor.”

  Source
• 

  Cathleen Biga, MSN, FACC

  Cardiology

  •

  American College of Cardiology

  “Prior authorization is regularly identified as a key source of burnout for health care workers as it is often an unnecessary, time-consuming process that ultimately causes avoidable delays in patient care,”

  Source