Title
An Innovative Approach to Improve Communication and Reduce Physician Stress and Burnout in a University Affiliated Residency Program.
Abstract
Ineffective communication between nursing staff and residents leads to numerous educational and patient-care interruptions, increasing resident stress and overall workload. We developed an innovative and simple, secure electronic health record (EHR) base text paging system to communicate with internal medicine residents. The goal is to avoid unnecessary interruption during patient care or educational activities and reduce stress. Traditional paging system can send a phone number to call back. We developed and implemented a HIPPA-compliant, EHR-integrated text paging at a busy 591-bed urban hospital. Access was granted to unit clerks, nursing staff, case managers, and physicians. Senders could either send a traditional telephone number page or a text page through our EHR. The recipient could then either acknowledge receipt of the page or take appropriate actions. Afterward, Internal medicine residents were polled on overall satisfaction difference between basic phone based numeric paging and the enhanced EHR text paging system. Educational interruptions (averaging over 7 pages) decreased from 64% to 16%. Patient care interruptions fell from 68% to 12%. 88% of residents felt that 50% or less of the pages were non-emergent and did not require an immediate action. 92% of 25 surveyed internal medicine residents preferred text paging over numeric paging and responded through the EHR 60% of the time by placing direct orders. Time savings using the new system over a 3-month span amounted to 72.5 h in transmission time alone. Text paging among medical caregivers and internal medicine residents through EHR-associated communication reduced patient care and educational interruptions. It saved time spent sending pages, answering unnecessary pages and it improved resident's subjective stress and satisfaction levels.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1007/s10916-018-0956-z
J. Medical Systems
Keywords
Field
DocType
Communication,Computer communication network,Educational interruptions,Electronic health record,Interdisciplinary communication,Paging,Quality improvement,Workload reduction
Computer security,Workload,Receipt,Phone,Medical record,Medical emergency,Paging,Burnout,Medicine,Telephone number,Quality management
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
42
7
0148-5598
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
0
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Ryan Lapointe100.34
Siddharth Bhesania200.34
Tristan Tanner300.34
Adithya Peruri400.34
Parag Mehta500.34