Information overload in a healthcare setting refers to when there's too much data, either written, verbal and nonverbal, for the clinician to organize, synthesize, properly draw conclusions, or act on one.
Excessive information on a patient's Electronic Health Record (EHR) can often contribute to information overload, often called "Note Bloat." Note bloat may include irrelevant information, poor data display, and excessive alerts.
A comprehensive study of 28 articles, Patient Safety Issues From Information Overload in Electronic Medical Records, found that doctors often complained about note bloat, citing that note bloat may lead to cognitive overload, leading to potential errors which compromise patient safety and care.
Physicians also complained about how much time they spend documenting rather than spending it with patients. Research shows that physicians spend up to twice as much time documenting in EHRs than with patients.
Athenahealth conducted their Annual Physician Sentiment Survey, an annual survey that gain insights in our current world of healthcare. This survey identified information overload as a major theme affecting practicing doctors and their daily lives.
This survey reveals that doctors are so inundated and overwhelmed with irrelevant data that 63% of physicians surveyed says their stress levels increase. 30% pf physicians say that information overload contributes to burnout.
This extraneous amount of information makes it that much harder to find data that physicians look for before meeting with their patient. Despite the wealth of information in EHRs, the rate of physicians feeling that they had adequate information on a patient before their encounter dropped 8% between 2022 and 2023.
What can be done?
Information overload is clearly a problem in healthcare, specifically in EHRs, but what can be done to solve these issues? Moving forward, the focus must be simplifying the data, filtering out irrelevant data, and making it easier to find.
The Mayo Clinic surveyed 1,500 ICU clinicians over a two-year period. With this survey they found that thousands of pieces of data were pouring through the EHR when they only needed roughly 60 pieces of patient information.
With this information in mind the Mayo Clinic, in partnership with OpenAI, built out an EHR interface for clinicians in the ICU called Ambient Warning and Response Evaluation (AWARE) which filters out irrelevant data and delivers the needed information to clinicians.
The AWARE program reportedly decreased physician task load, but also improved efficiency and saved up to five minutes of chart review per patient per day!
This program demonstrates how artificial intelligence can be used to shift through information and give doctors information they need, potentially lowering stress levels and burnout.
Another study, Impact of Electronic Health Record Use on Cognitive Load and Burnout Among Clinicians: Narrative Review, found that EHR systems often do not "talk" to each other across different healthcare systems. These information silos place a cognitive load burden on physicians. The study suggests that to reduce the cognitive burden, EHR systems should focus on improving design, user interface, data visualization, and connecting EHR systems.
SafeHaven is here to support you and your team. If you're struggling with burnout, please don't hesitate to contact SafeHaven to learn more about our confidential program.
