The following is based on athenahealth’s Physician Sentiment Survey: a sample of 743 practicing physicians across specialties who completed an athenahealth survey conducted by Harris Poll in January 2022, in addition to 15 in-depth qualitative interviews with survey respondents.

Physicians are split into two categories when it comes to their opinions on the state of healthcare: those who report being optimistic about the future of medicine (healthcare optimists) and those who do not (healthcare pessimists).

While there is overlap between certain specialties, organizations, burnout rates, and attitudes, none of it is mutually exclusive.

What is driving physicians’ perspectives? How will their outlooks impact the industry tomorrow?

With observationally collected data, it’s hard to demonstrate a causal relationship between the experience of burnout, organizational factors, and individual physicians’ outlook on the future of healthcare.

Causal or not, we know these factors are related — further understanding how they are related, and in which direction, will be crucial in improving the working experience of all physicians.

A solution? Better connectivity… starting with EHRs.

Physicians across the board have one thing in common: they all interact with one or more EHRs. While better connectivity isn’t a cure-all for physician pessimism, take a look at what physicians report wanting from their EHRs. Do they believe change is possible?

Improved data connectivity between systems is one of two top physician recommendations that would improve the quality of healthcare they can provide.

Across healthcare optimists and pessimists, nine out of ten physicians agree that better data about their patients would give them more confidence in their ability to support patient needs.

More data without better management risks increasing already high rates of information overload.

Physicians need better, simplified workflows that curate the most important information while helping them with documentation to meet quality, regulatory, and payer standards.

It isn’t news that physicians are overwhelmed by excessive documentation and administrative requirements.

What can improve these burnout rates? Our research revealed that when an organization doesn’t take steps to reduce burnout, its physicians are more likely to cite bureaucratic tasks as a consistent cause of burnout. They’re also nearly…

If organizations take steps to reduce the administrative burden caused by government regulations, data suggests they may modulate physician burnout levels. Where to start? Establishing better cross-EHR patient data connections.

Better connections may convert healthcare pessimists to healthcare optimists.

As a result of the myriad pressures on healthcare professionals, physicians are divided on where the industry is headed, with just over half (52%) saying they are pessimistic about the future of U.S. healthcare and only 48% expressing optimism.
 

Overall, physicians are optimistic that a wholly connected system will be achieved at some point during their careers, with 71% of younger physicians (age 50 or younger) having a brighter outlook than older physicians (age 50 or older).

If a wholly connected system is what brightens physicians’ outlooks, it looks like we’re beginning to tip the scale.