Physician burnout crisis: Can AI ease the doctor shortage, improve patient visits?

Most doctors enter the health-care profession out of a desire to help people, not fill out paper work. However, excessive administrative workloads, reduced staffing, concerns over financial viability and rising patient expectations can lead to high rates of burnout.

Artificial intelligence may help reduce many problems facing health-care workers, the Physician Sentiment Survey from Athenahealth found. A majority of physicians already use electronic health record solutions and praise them for helping provide high-quality care (65%) and improving efficiencies (54%).

“One of the top concerns physicians have with regard to AI is the potential loss of human touch; that is an incredibly important signal to which we need to pay attention,” said Dr. Nele Jessel, chief medical officer for athenahealth. “In order for physicians to fully benefit from technology as a care-enhancement tool, they need to experience more advantages and fewer added complexities or burdens.”

Among other survey findings:

• Nearly all physicians agree that getting the right clinical data at the right time is very important. However, four in five physicians don’t believe that more clinical data is always the answer to achieving higher-quality care. The majority currently are so overburdened by information that it raises their stress levels (63%). For many, this information overload is a growing cause of burnout (30% vs. 24% in 2022).
• Twice as many survey participants say AI eventually will be part of the solution, compared to those who say it is part of the problem. Those who believe in the positive potential of AI are much more hopeful that the field of health care is headed in the right direction. They also feel less burned out on a regular basis than those who are pessimistic about AI’s role.
• 60% of respondents see the loss of a human touch as their biggest concern regarding the use of AI, reinforcing the belief that the best use of AI in health care will be in creating efficiencies in administrative functions, improving diagnostic accuracy, data monitoring and other back-office tasks.
• 4 in 10 physicians report being concerned that AI will just be one more thing that will complicate health care and that AI is being overhyped and cannot meet expectations (40%).

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Athenahealth also conducted a separate survey about consumers’ perceptions of AI in which results revealed gaps in awareness and trust. As with physicians, most consumers see AI as part of the potential solution to health care, yet have concerns about losing the human touch.

“If we get this right, we’ll be using the technology to reduce administrative work and increase efficiencies in ways that allow physicians to refocus on their patients,” Jessel said