Headlines in consumer and professional media outlets alike have made one thing abundantly clear: Healthcare providers are tired. According to a study published by the Mayo Clinic, 62.8% of physicians reported at least one manifestation of burnout in 2021, up from just 38.2% in 2020. Finding a balance between professional and personal life is a troubling issue, as satisfaction with work-life integration fell from 46.1% in 2020 to just 30.2% in 2021. The end result: The clinical ranks are dwindling, and the U.S. is expected to experience a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034, according to projections from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Many factors contribute to stress, but burnout can often be linked to system inefficiencies, administrative burdens and increased regulations.
"While burnout manifests in individuals, it originates in systems. Burnout is not the result of a deficiency in resiliency among physicians, rather it is due to the systems in which physicians work," said Christine Sinsky, MD, American Medical Association, Vice President of Professional Satisfaction
Medication reconciliation, of course, is a task that providers must pay close attention to, as care suffers dramatically when patients don’t get the right medications, in the right doses, at the right times. However, medication reconciliation is a time-consuming process that typically involves building a complete list of a person's medications, checking them for accuracy, reconciling and documenting any changes.
Indeed, while a routine component of patient care, medication reconciliation is not a simple task. Consider the following: There are 832 ways that a provider could convey just one common mediation direction. The challenge rests in performing medication reconciliation functions as quickly as possible while still ensuring patient safety.
The good news: Electronic medication histories that include Sigs – the widely accepted standard to communicate patient prescription directions – can autogenerate medication instructions, making life much easier for providers.
The flipside: Sigs may often do this without including details such as when to take a medication or what to take it with. As such, a patient might take a medication in the morning when they should have taken the sleep-inducing drug at night or might take a medication without food and then experience nausea in the aftermath. Not surprisingly, these errors are often cited as one of the causes of the adverse drug events (ADEs) that account for nearly 700,000 emergency department visits and nearly 100,000 hospitalizations annually.
A smarter Sig
Fortunately, Surescripts Medication History with Sig IQ can help reduce administrative burden while simultaneously improving patient safety. Sig IQ translates free text Sigs into structured and codified Sigs, leveraging the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) standard, prescription data and clinical review by pharmacists. These more accurate Sigs help save time during reconciliation and prevent ADEs.
This advanced technology provides the perfect antidote to the administrative burden/patient safety conundrum. Because structured and codified data is pulled directly into the record as the provider intended, patient safety is improved.
More specifically, Surescripts Medication History with Sig IQ helps to:
Improve the overall prescribing process. Because pertinent information is pulled directly into the record, transcription errors are less likely, thereby reducing the likelihood of ADEs. In addition, it ensures that the codification meets network standards by leveraging the NCPDP standard.
Decrease ambiguity by checking for accuracy in a patient’s medication history, while also confirming proper dosage and frequency. Clinicians capture accurate patient directions, eliminating the need for pharmacists to clarify free text instructions, immediately improving the clinical review process in the existing workflow.
Alleviate some of the administrative hassles commonly associated with medication reconciliation. Providers automatically capture accurate patient directions, decreasing the need for pharmacists to clarify free text instructions, immediately improving the clinical review process in the existing workflow. Sig IQ is also integrated within the EMR, further reducing administrative burden.
Surescripts is empowering providers to experience these advantages, and is, therefore, moving the patient safety needle forward in the healthcare industry. Indeed, Surescripts delivered 2.54 billion medication histories during 2022, up 7.5% from 2021, according to their 2022 National Progress Report. In addition, nearly 800 million Sigs have been translated from free text to structured and codified text so far in 2023.
“By leveraging medication history with advanced functionality such as Sig IQ, providers and care teams can access a cleaner, more complete and intelligently enhanced picture of medications prescribed and dispensed. And, that, in itself, helps to ensure that patients are receiving the best and safest care,” Bridget Wahlstrom, Director of Product Management at Surescripts, concluded.