Hospitals today regularly use health tech to solve a variety of needs, including those that improve patient outcomes. However, these technologies—meant to do good—are often not built with healthcare workers in mind.
Current studies estimate that over 60% of hospital staff report burnout. There are several causes of burnout, including understaffing, lack of management support, stressful work environments, lack of training, and overly complex technologies. Companies that design technology should focus on solutions that decrease and prevent clinician burnout instead of introducing technology that increases the burden on health care workers.
Technologies can lead to burnout
Two studies demonstrate the negative consequences of not considering clinicians when building health tech solutions.
A Harris Poll survey of 500 physicians for Stanford Medicine found that 60% said electronic health records (EHRs) aren’t designed with the needs of clinicians in mind. Clinicians reported that the systems are difficult to navigate and require excessive data entry, which leads to workplace burnout and dissatisfaction.
A survey of nurses published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found similar results. Over 80% of respondents said EHR systems aren’t designed to meet their work needs and are often difficult to navigate, lack user-friendly interfaces and aren’t easily integrated into other systems. These surveys suggest that there is a wide and growing gap between the needs of health care professionals and the design of current medical technology. One serious repercussion of this gap is the increased workload, anxiety, and burnout that medical technologies generate for the clinicians forced to use them.
Experiences of health care workers should drive technology
Clinicians experience a daily barrage of alerts (many of which are false positives and require no clinical intervention), messages, orders, figures, screens, and conversations delivered via medical technologies meant to help them. Anyone who has spent time in an ICU is familiar with the vital signs monitoring systems that track many parameters including patients’ heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation. These systems alert clinicians when a patient’s vital signs are abnormal. However, the little-known fact is that these systems generate alarms, of which 85–99% don’t require any action from clinicians, and the cacophony of noise they generate is a significant cause of clinician burnout.
Addressing these issues requires a commitment to user-centered design principles, where the insights and experiences of frontline workers drive the development process. By fostering a deeper collaboration between technology developers and healthcare workers, we can create tools that not only meet clinical needs but also support the well-being of those providing care. Ultimately, the goal should be technologies that enhance, rather than complicate, the critical work of healthcare professionals.
User-centered design
At CalmWave, we have kept this philosophy at the forefront and purpose-built a SaaS platform to directly address the needs of hospitals and healthcare professionals. By prioritizing user-centered design approaches, in which healthcare professionals are actively involved in the design process, we have ensured that we meet the needs of the people who will be using it. Healthcare professionals participate in every stage of development, from initial concept, to testing and refinement. Their feedback is integral to shaping the features and functionality of our platform, ensuring that it is intuitive, efficient, and truly supportive of their day-to-day tasks. This collaborative approach guarantees that our solutions are not only practical and effective but also aligned with the real-world demands of clinical environments.
This journey has reinforced my belief that the most impactful innovations come from genuine collaboration and a deep commitment to meeting the actual users’ needs. There is immense value in truly listening to and integrating the perspectives of those on the front lines of healthcare. It’s not just about creating a product; it’s about building a tool that seamlessly adds value for the healthcare professionals navigating the complex and high-stakes hospital environment. Engaging directly with clinicians has highlighted nuances and challenges that are often overlooked, and it has underscored the importance of empathy and understanding in tech development.
Looking forward, the commitment to user-centered design in health technology must become the industry standard rather than the exception. Continuous collaboration with healthcare workers will lead to innovations that truly address their needs and improve the quality of care provided to patients. At CalmWave, we are dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what healthtech can achieve by always keeping the end-user—the healthcare professional—at the heart of our development process. Our goal is to create a future where technology empowers clinicians, reduces burnout, and ultimately leads to better patient outcomes. This vision can only be realized through ongoing dialogue, innovation, and a steadfast commitment to the well-being of all, both our clinicians who are the backbone of our healthcare system and the patients being treated.
Ophir Ronen is founder and CEO of CalmWave.
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