Many healthcare providers feel undervalued, unappreciated, and overworked.

(“Yeah,” I can hear you saying, “Name one provider that doesn’t feel that way!”)

I know that for many providers, it feels like their work is disposable, that it’s not valuable, and that they’re a cog in the wheel.

In reality, however, healthcare providers are in short supply and of extreme value to hospitals. In fact, the cost of replacing a physician is estimated to be $500,000 to $1 million. And Fierce Healthcare reports that the provider shortage is bad and getting worse. They quote Bill Haylon, CEO of Leaders for Today as saying, “The findings tell us is that there simply isn’t enough qualified talent to go around and that frustration levels are rising."

So you would think that the healthcare system, in particular major hospitals, would be "all hands on deck" to retain their healthcare providers and to leverage their time and expertise.

In reality, my observation is that hospitals simply aren't doing enough to retain their providers. In 2014, 54% of U.S. physicians reported burnout, much of their frustration coming from ever-increasing clerical loads. Of course, physicians with symptoms of burnout are more likely to report having made a major medical error in the past 3 months and to receive lower patient-satisfaction scores. Many, perhaps most, feel under-appreciated, under-supported, and overworked.

Further, most medical practices and hospital systems are not leveraging their providers' time with hybrid store-and-forward telemedicine or healthcare collaboration. The pressure on providers to perform at the highest levels, with no mistakes, is high. But the tools provided to support care coordination or healthcare collaboration -- which can reduce workload, and decreased mistakes, while easing burnout -- are inadequate. 

We believe that the key challenge here is for us to connect the dots. We need to connect the dots between hiring challenges that hospital administrators face... and burnout... and the lack of healthcare collaboration tools that can significantly leverage providers time, and ease burnout. Ultimately, the right tools -- like healthcare collaboration using iClickCare Hybrid Store-and-Forward® -- can make the challenges around the provider shortage much less severe.

To learn more about how to start a program at your hospital, download our free guide: