Technology is often heralded as the solution for challenges in healthcare operations, such as overworked staff, limited clinical capacity, and complicated care navigation. Recent advances in technology, including machine learning and artificial intelligence, hold immense potential to more comprehensively address how efficiently care is administered and delivered. 

According to a recent Doximity poll, 81% of physicians reporting feeling overworked, and 75% said reducing the administrative burden could “meaningfully improve physician overwork and burnout” (Doximity 2024). Poll participants noted that advances in technology held the most promise for significant improvement in working conditions.

However, despite widespread burnout and an apparent eagerness to embrace solutions, innovators often encounter significant obstacles when striving for adoption of novel tools. This raises an important question: why is it so challenging to implement new technology, particularly in care delivery settings?

To facilitate a comprehensive analysis of clinical technology adoption, we conducted in-depth interviews with senior executive leaders, including Chief Medical Officers (CMOs), Chief Medical Information Officers (CMIOs), Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from leading health systems. Below, we synthesize our findings from conversations with key executives from over 30 health systems and academic medical centers.

Challenges

Integration

At the onset of any conversation about adopting technology, one of the first three questions that will be asked is whether the tool integrates within existing systems. 

While many tools serve valuable purposes, they often lack proper integration with Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) or are integrated in unsupported ways. Tools that are not integrated with EMRs may require a separate internet window and login. Alternatively, unsupported integrations may use technologies such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to simulate human actions within the EMR: these forms of integration tend to be brittle and are often costly to maintain. 

Furthermore, integration ‘friendliness’ varies across EMRs: platforms like Epic and Athena offer supported APIs to perform specific actions. However, if the vendor's desired action or data is not available through an API, they must rely on the EMR provider to develop a custom API, often an uphill battle unless the innovator has a partner willing to act as an advocate. 

Herein lies the first challenge for an innovator: are you able or willing to modify your product to fit a supported integration? If not, do you have a partner willing to act on your behalf as an advocate to the EMR provider?

Workflow

For those able to overcome integration challenges, a second obstacle arises in terms of workflow. Clinicians and administrators often face difficulties in navigating multiple workflows throughout each encounter, each with separate set of guidelines. The lack of a unified framework for these technologies means that clinicians are left to piece together workflows and solutions, often feeling overwhelmed (Rehab U Practice Solutions 2023).       

There is a major opportunity for innovators willing to partner with on-the-ground operational teams to develop clear frameworks and substantial support in workflow development and staff training. This ensures that new technologies are seamlessly integrated and that staff are well-equipped to utilize these tools effectively within their daily tasks. Solutions that are embedded directly into clinician workflows, combat this challenge faced by many point solutions during implementation. 

Finally, when considering workflow(s), consider that sometimes the best change in behavior is no change at all. If the innovator is able to embed their product within existing workflows, drive ROI down the line, that is often a superior solution to eliminating work for clinical staff as this requires additional training and change management.

Addressing Security and Privacy Concerns

Security and privacy are paramount in the adoption of new healthcare technologies. Concerns about unauthorized access to sensitive data and the potential for breaches are significant barriers to technology adoption. 

Furthermore, for vendors with access to patient health information (PHI), the desire to retain data to further product development is often at odds with their partner’s goals to reduce the risk of exposing PHI to unauthorized parties. 

To mitigate these risks, healthcare organizations must implement robust security measures such as encryption, secure storage methods, and strict access controls to protect patient data. An information security (InfoSec) process with vendors is recommended to be completed during the contracting process, which involves vendor risk assessments (VRAs) to identify potential risks and understand how data is shared. Robust data retention policies can ensure that partner and vendor are on the same page when it comes to leveraging patient information to refine and develop product enhancements.

Managing Costs and Maximizing ROI

Finally, adopting new healthcare technologies can involve significant costs, including the initial integration investment, ongoing maintenance, and comprehensive staff training. A clear ROI can mitigate concerns over these financial and operational investments, but it is often difficult to attribute to one direct root cause, such as a new vendor’s technology. 

To overcome the challenge of estimating ROI, a vendor is recommended to adopt a pilot approach, to reduce the upfront cost of implementation and gain some quick wins to justify expansion to the broader clinical staff. A phased implementation can also help manage associated expenses effectively. Some leaders mentioned piloting two technologies at the same time to compare and contrast their experiences.  

Best Practices for Integrating New Technologies in Healthcare

Despite the challenges outlined above, new technologies can address many of challenges facing healthcare executives today. The executive leaders queried outlined a number of best practices that will best position new vendors in deploying new innovations.

Personalized Onboarding

Customizing the onboarding experience to best fit the needs of the partner have proven to amplify pilot success. While a one-size-fits-all approach may be approach for later stage businesses, newer innovators need to match the cadence and approach of their clinical partners. Regular check ins and ongoing data analysis should act as goal posts for client success leaders driving partners to launch. Failure to see expected outcomes should lead vendors to pause and reevaluate their approach vs. continuing to move forward under the pressure of commercial expansion.

Change Management Streamlines Adoption

With an increase in new digital tools, frequent changes can create a cycle of consistently ‘relearning’ new digital tools. It is key to understand clinical users’ workflows before and after implementing solutions to guide change awareness and process-based training. 

Capturing ongoing feedback, metrics and providing vendor-run ongoing support is essential for staff to adapt to new workflows introduced by EHR systems or vendors. This support helps in reinforcing the application of new skills and knowledge (HealthIT.Gov 2024).

Prioritize Predictability

Many solutions being pitched to the healthcare sector today derive their foundation from LLMs: good at predicting trends, but lacking the product predictability clinical organizations require when automating decisions or actions related to patients’ health decisions.

A vendor’s ability to give the partner a predictable experience and outcomes substantially improves to likelihood of long-term adoption. Vendors should priortitize product and technical features that expand predctability and stability, especially during the pilot phase.

Implementing Best Practices

Implementing these best practices for integrating new technologies in healthcare can significantly enhance the quality of care provided to patients while ensuring healthcare professionals are confident in adapting to changes. Below are a few case studies of successful partner innovations to provide a sample of real-world scenarios of these best practices at play.

Case Studies: Successful Adoption of New Technology in Healthcare

Austin Regional Clinic Reduces Inbasket Load with Elaborate

Austin Regional Clinic (ARC) implemented Elaborate to reduce practitioners' challenges managing administrative burden in their growing inbaskets and ensure compliance with CURES regulation. Elaborate’s Notate product provides ARC patients contextualized, action-oriented medical summaries to accompany new lab results immediately upon release. After a successful pilot, ARC increased users by 16x within 5 months with users seeing up to 30% time savings within 1 month of implementation. The success of Elaborate’s implementation was due to a collaborative, hands-on implementation and buy-in from clinical leadership across the system. Furthermore, key decisions have been data-driven with ongoing analytics reviews using Epic, survey, and qualitative data analyses. The most recent findings revealed 84% of clinicians reduced the time spent in their inbasket after hours, and 74% are ‘no touch,’ meaning Elaborate’s lab summary was comprehensive enough that clinicians didn’t have to provide additional context, duplicate, or add unnecessary communication. According to Ed Lee, M.D., M.P.H, Chair of Clinical Education and Director of Clinical Informatics at California Northstate University, and former EVP and CIO for The Permanente Federation, “The ultimate time saving comes from the patient email that is never sent, which is why Elaborate is such a great solution.”

Atrius Health Reevaluated Message Triage

Atrius Health tackled physician burnout and improved work-life balance by reevaluating their message triage system. By eliminating low-value tasks and delegating tasks to appropriate team members, they significantly reduced administrative load. This resulted in 1,500 fewer clicks per physician per day, totaling 50 million fewer clicks annually for the organization, and a 25% reduction in inbox volume for primary care physicians (AMA 2023). These changes allowed physicians to focus on important messages related to patient safety and care rather than being overwhelmed by unnecessary tasks.

TidalHealth Offers Clinical Decision Support with IBM

TidalHealth Peninsula Regional, a hospital in Maryland, partnered with IBM to implement IBM Micromedex with Watson, an AI-driven clinical decision support software. Early surveys showed that 92% of respondents were be more likely to use clinical decision support tools that were integrated into their EMR (IBM 2020). This technology integrates with patients' electronic medical records to streamline information retrieval for clinicians. By reducing the time spent on clinical searches from 3-4 minutes to less than 1 minute, the AI solution has freed up significant time for providers, allowing them to focus more on patient care. This efficiency improvement exemplifies how AI can reduce administrative burdens and enhance clinical decision-making​ (IBM 2020)​.

These case studies illustrate the impactful role of new technologies in healthcare, illuminating successful implementations that enhance patient education, streamline processes, and address one of the major challenges resulting in administrative burden and burnout: the inbasket. The integration of automated patient communication, data analytics, and digital tools across these organizations highlights the transformative potential of technology in healthcare.

Schedule a consultation with an implementation specialist today to learn more about the ways Elaborate can reduce clinical burnout and drive transformational change for your team.