Assessing Provider Satisfaction

And how to design health IT interventions to improve satisfaction and reduce burden, January 2020

Provider satisfaction is of critical importance for health centers to promote safety and workforce stability. A 2013 survey found that dissatisfied physicians were 2-3 times more likely to leave medical practice than their more satisfied colleagues. This may be unsurprising given that another recent study found that physicians spend almost half of their day on the EHR and desk work. Even during the patient visit, 37 percent of the time in the exam room is spent on these tasks. The increase in clerical and documentation burden related to EHR adoption was cited as a contributor to provider dissatisfaction.

This resource puts forth several options for assessing provider satisfaction or burden, with a focus on health IT. Each provider assessment also includes information about cost and access. In addition to surveying providers, there is other information that can be assessed for baseline when planning an intervention to decrease burden. These can be used for pre– and post-intervention monitoring and evaluation; several such options are profiled in this resource. Finally, related research findings, including the overall relationship between EHR and provider satisfaction, regulatory and documentation requirements, the impact of training, provider autonomy and role in EHR design,  and in-basket management, are described, These results are then translated into potential interventions that could be implemented to improve provider satisfaction or reduce provider burden.

Download the full PDF resource below, in the Documents for download section, for all the information!

HITEQ also offers this template which assists organizations in operationalizing the information set forth in the resource available for download on this page.