How Remote Patient Monitoring Can Reduce Provider Burnout
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed many of the burdens and inefficiencies in healthcare, especially when it comes to who bears them the most. There is currently a growing epidemic of healthcare provider burnout, and without interventions, this may have perverse effects on many people’s health and lives — not only the providers themselves, but also patients alike.
What is physician burnout?
Think about the last time you watched television with a real, physical remote control. When the batteries of the remote are brand new, the remote works great. However, overtime, it may take more brute force to press the buttons and get the volume to change, play shows, and even turn the TV on. Without recharging, the remote control may cease to work altogether.
Providers too experience this cycle. According to the Maslach Burnout Inventory, burnout is a work-related syndrome measured through:
- Emotional exhaustion, or thoughts and feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by work;
- Depersonalization, an unfeeling and impersonal response toward patient;
- A sense of reduced personal accomplishment, or feelings of incompetence and successful achievement in one’s work.
Causes of physician burnout
Work conditions and pressures are the number one stressor for physicians. Time pressure, chaotic environments, low control over work pace, and unfavorable organizational culture have all been found to be strongly associated with physicians’ burnout.
The implementation of electronic medical records (EMR) has also contributed to burnout. With more complicated systems, physicians are experiencing more stress and expressing intentions to leave their organizations. Primary care physicians who are using EMR with higher number of functions are reporting more stress and less job satisfaction, and with hybrid systems composed of both paper and electronic records require larger and more intense cognitive demands from physicians.
Consequences of provider burnout
Burnout is often associated with regulatory pressures due to evolving payment and care-delivery models. This can lead to a reduction in the amount of time physicians spend delivering direct patient care. When a physician is burned out, it can also have a significant impact on organizational productivity, morale, costs and the quality of care being delivered.
One of the direst consequences of burnout is a tendency toward substance abuse. About 8% to 12% of health professionals develop a substance-related disorder at some point in their lives, but like other signs symptoms of physician burnout, addiction is shielded by the “code of silence” among practitioners, who often do not confront colleagues exhibiting symptoms of addiction out of loyalty. Physicians are also more likely to commit suicide than any other profession; in the United States, an estimated 300 to 400 doctors die by suicide each year, a rate of 28 to 40 per 100,000 more than double that of general population. Furthermore, medical education often ignores balance skills, physicians often have few recourses of recharging and relaxation to cope with these feelings and diseases.
Such physician dissatisfaction corresponds to the quality of patient care. Studies have found relationships between physician job attitudes and physician errors, turnover, patient satisfaction, and adherence to healthcare guidelines. A review of 47 studies involving over 42,000 physicians found that physician burnout doubled the risk of adverse patient safety incidents and led to decreased patient satisfaction.
With ramifications for physicians’ lives and the health care system at large, decreasing physician stress is a key priority.
Solutions: remote-patient monitoring
Telemedicine has made strides in improving physicians’ delivery and quality of care. For example, in a poll of 800 physicians, it was found that specialists which are among the most burnt out — such as urologists, emergency medicine physicians, and pediatricians — are also the top specialties willing to practice via telehealth. Among the physicians surveyed, 93% reported telehealth as improving patients’ access to care; 77% said it contributes to more efficient use of time for doctors and patients; and 60% said using telehealth enhances the doctor-patient relationship.
Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is a specific form of telehealth that allows providers to monitor patients’ chronic conditions which can reduce much of the burden that physicians currently carry in terms of assessing patients and recording their data. Patient-generated data provides powerful insights that physicians otherwise may not be privy to and can allow for more efficient care.
Remote monitoring solutions like Somatix’s SafeBeing™ use AI to read vital signs — such as heart rate and oxygen saturation — passively, consistently, and in real-time, which can give physicians deeper information about a patient’s health without even a physical visit. With smoother workflows, RPM can make health care delivery less exhausting, while also allowing for digital observation of major chronic illnesses like hypertension and dementia.
When patients can collect their own data from RPM devices, they play a more active role in their medical decision-making, while simultaneously shifting the burden from physicians and increasing patient satisfaction.
This RPM technology has the power to heal providers and patients physically, mentally, and emotionally. Adopting and adapting to it can change the landscape of medicine.
