Strategies to Reduce HCP Message Overload

Communication Systems - Reducing Information Overload Healthcare professionals are drowning in messages, emails, and notifications. Here's how to create communication systems that actually work. Essential Communication Principles: Urgent versus important messaging needs different channels. True emergencies use direct calls or secure messaging. Project updates and routine information use scheduled communications, not constant interruptions. Channel Designation: Email for non-urgent information requiring documentation. Secure messaging for quick questions needing immediate response. Video calls for complex discussions requiring back-and-forth dialogue. Shared documents for collaborative planning and updates. The Weekly Communication Rhythm: Monday morning: key priorities and changes for the week. Wednesday check-in: progress updates and obstacle identification. Friday wrap-up: completed items and next week's focus areas. Reducing Message Volume: Before sending any communication, ask: Does this person need to know this? Can they act on this information? Is this the best way to share it? Eliminate "reply all" culture and create specific distribution lists for different types of information. Implementation Strategy: Start with one department or team. Define communication protocols clearly and train everyone on new systems. Measure reduction in unnecessary messages and improved response times. The goal isn't eliminating communication, it's making every message count. Next week: Building decision-making frameworks that stick. #CommunicationStrategy #HealthcareOperations #InformationManagement #WorkflowOptimization

If you ask any clinician, one of their top daily struggles and sources of burnout is the inbox. 📬 The amount of traffic and management of messaging adds significant time to the clinical day. Wanted to highlight the continued awesome work out of Corewell Health on their "inboxologist" approach to patient messaging in the primary care setting. Methods: - Establish a two-tier triage system with registered nurses (RNs) as the initial triagers and advanced practice providers (APPs) as the "inboxologists" handling more complex messages. - RNs use clinical guidelines to respond to simple patient questions and schedule visits as needed, routine others that need advanced decision making to the inboxologist APP. Results of the model: - Reduced the burden on primary care physicians (PCPs) by decreasing the number of messages requiring PCP involvement from 35.9% to 11.5%, resulting in an overall average in-basket reduction of 41% for individual PCPs. - Reduced the time PCPs spent on the in-basket, both during office hours (from 66 minutes to 41 minutes, a 38% drop) and after office hours (from 55 minutes to 37 minutes, a 33% drop). - Improved patient satisfaction with the timeliness of responses to their messages, with the average time to respond dropping from 60.9 hours to just 6.9 hours, a total reduction of 88.7%. Wow. The financials are compelling. Time saved actually allows for more patients to be seen on a daily basis, allowing up to 63K extra patients to be seen per year. Thank you for sharing this work! Rima Shah MD, MBA Alexis Kurek Michael Walmer Jason Fleeger Kim Sherbrooke, MHA, FACMPE Alejandro Quiroga MD MBA #teamwork #efficiency #healthcare #patientexperience https://lnkd.in/ed-Gy8Aq

As healthcare organizations continue to digitize their operations, one unintended consequence has become increasingly clear - the physician inbox overload epidemic. According to data from Forward Health Group, Inc., which directly analyzed client EMR data, the number of inbox messages physicians see can spike 20-30% in the first month after a practice hires a new Medical Assistant (MA). This is largely driven by the "just to double check" messages from MAs who are learning on the job, as well as the increased volume of voicemails from attending MDs. When you look at the full denominator of inbox activity across hospitals and health systems, the picture becomes even more concerning. As Michael Barbouche from Forward Health has found, this has led to a culture of communication overload that has become a normative "inbox bomb" for clinicians. This is a critical issue, as the first wave of digitization (EMRs) is killing physician productivity and causing dangerous levels of burnout. Neither health systems nor physicians can sustain the status quo. To address this challenge, we need to take a three-pronged approach: 1. Quantitative problem definition: Rigorously analyze the scale and impact of inbox overload to truly understand the scope of the issue. 2. Practical problem-solving with the right digital tools: Deploy passive or autonomous agent technologies, with medically appropriate rules and monitoring, to intelligently triage and manage inbox communications without relying solely on additional human capital. 3. Change management to engage key stakeholders: Work closely with physicians, operational leaders, and IT teams to reengineer workflows and usher in a second wave of digital transformation that solves first-wave digitization problems. As pioneers like Sara Vaezy and team at Providence have demonstrated, AI-enabled software can safely redirect patient messages to the right resources without burdening physicians. We must expand upon these types of innovations to the entire physician inbox to make the dent necessary to rightsize the clinician time dedicated to work that only they should own. This is a culture problem, not another "blame the EMR" screed. By taking a holistic, data-driven, and collaborative approach, we can overcome the unintended consequences of digitization 1.0 and provide physicians the support they desperately need. I'd love to hear thoughts from industry experts like Michael, Sara, Brendan Keeler, Abhinav Shashank, Spencer Dorn and others on how we can solve this critical challenge facing our healthcare system.

What does AI-powered omnichannel engagement actually look like in pharma? Below are two fictional customer profiles: Dr. Chen is a GP who ignores marketing emails but regularly attends webinars. Dr. Johnson is a cardiologist who only engages when new clinical data is published. Two HCPs, different preferences. Today in Pharma, these distinct preferences are often overlooked by marketing and sales teams. HCPs frequently face communication overload, sometimes receiving daily, unpersonalized messages from different brands from the same company. Not a great customer experience. Pharma companies sit on mountains of CRM data that could be used to create best-in-class customer experiences, but so few achieve this in practice. There are many ideas for how to fix this. Here's one that leverages tried and true practices from other industries (including my previous employer, HBO Max): An AI-powered orchestration engine could learn from each doctor’s previous interactions, digital behavior patterns, and channel preferences across brands and therapy areas. Instead of sending generic, untargeted content in brand silos, the system determines: - Dr. Chen receives personalized webinar invitations focusing on therapeutic advancements relevant to her specialty. - Dr. Johnson receives succinct, insightful alerts soon after clinical data is published. Each HCP could have their own, tailored customer journey with hyper-personalized content (with the help of Gen AI) in their preferred channel. We are on a journey to ensure that HCPs receive the most relevant information at the right time, supporting better clinical decisions and improved patient outcomes. If you are a pharma leader on a similar journey, lets talk!