Over the 10 years I’ve spent blogging about healthcare IT, I’ve had the chance to talk to more doctors than I can count. For the most part, I’ve been impressed by how incredible these doctors are and their desired to provide amazing care to their patients. Their desire to do the right thing for their patients is powerful and gives me a lot of hope for the future of healthcare.
While I think that most doctors hearts are in the right place, I fear that most of them don’t spend enough time thinking and planning for the future of their practice. When does a doctor spend time exploring new innovative opportunities to improve their practice? When does a doctor have time to try out new approaches or to think deeply about how they could improve the patient experience?
There are a few doctors that can spend time thinking about these types of things. They work for large health systems as employed doctors. Sure, they’re busy too, but do generally have less to worry about. However, these doctors have almost no power to implement or test and changes to the way they practice medicine and the patient experience.
I’m not really blaming doctors for this problem. I realize that they’re super busy people. I’m sure many of them would love the opportunity to spend time reinventing the practice of medicine and the patient experience. If they had the opportunity, they’d happily take it. The problem is that most of them don’t think they can get off the proverbial hamster wheel that requires them to see patients in 15 minute increments.
I think this is a problem and I don’t see any easy fixes.
If you’re a small practice, when was the last time you implemented something that really transformed the way you practice medicine for the better? When was the last time you implemented something that wasn’t part of a government mandate? When was the last time that you spent time talking with your patients about their experience at your clinic and ways that you could make it better?
I’m sorry to say that I think the answers would all reflect the reality in healthcare that we don’t spend enough time on progressing the practice of medicine. I’m sure that some doctors would argue that they’re fine with the status quo. They don’t see a reason to change. Short term that strategy could work. Long term I think that approach will come up wanting.
It’s called “Margin” and we don’t have any. Everyone needs Margin in their lives (See Shawn Blanc’s https://thefocuscourse.com/time/ Without margin in the various parts of our lives we cannot be creative. It’s a massive problem amount primary care where burnout is over 60%. PCPs cannot hope to help get healthcare out of the monumental mess it is in without some margin in their lives. And our input is essential to solving the problem.
Dr. Nieder,
Great suggestion about margin. Most doctors have definitely squeezed most of the margin out of their lives. PCPs are definitely in the worst situation. Add in the cost of medical school and a perception around how much doctors should make and I think those all contribute to the hamster wheel that doctors are on and why they don’t have margins. Great way to frame it.