Doctors’ clerical duties cut 10 per cent

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This article was published 03/03/2024 (797 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Overburdened doctors across the province have had their tedious and time-intensive clerical duties cut more than 10 per cent over the last year.

A new report shows Manitoba has exceeded its target of reducing administrative work, including filling out virtual and hard-copy forms, to free up schedules so physicians can spend more time with patients.

Dr. Randy Guzman called the progress thus far “a good start.”

“It sounds big and it is significant but if you factor it down to per week and per minutes and per doctor, (it’s only about) 20 to 30 minutes per week, on average,” said Guzman, a vascular surgeon based at St. Boniface Hospital.

Last winter, the provincial government announced a new partnership with Doctors Manitoba to reduce red tape across the healthcare system and tackle burnout among professionals.

The joint task force’s goal was to find 63,300 hours (a tenth of the overall time that local physicians are estimated to spend on clerical tasks every year) in annual savings.

Its members – one of whom is Guzman, now president-elect of Doctors Manitoba – have identified an extra 12,000 hours in “unnecessary” administrative duties, per a 10-page report released over the weekend.

About 225,000 more patient visits could happen annually as a result of the latest findings, which total 75,300 hours.

Those savings reflect numerous changes, including the ongoing expansion of “tap ‘n go” cards that speed up a physician’s login process to access electronic medical records.

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Approximately 173 physicians have received tap cards in recent months.

For Guzman, who has yet to obtain one, the biggest time sucker is repeated logins throughout the day.

“(It) sounds silly, but it’s not silly,” he said, noting his initial morning routine takes between four to seven minutes and everytime he walks away from his computer and returns he has to redo it.

“When I get to work, I’m logging into my computer – it’s your name and your password – and then you have to log into the e-chart and then you have to log into the picture imaging system and then I have to log into my private chart and sometimes, they talk to eachother and sometimes they don’t.”

The task force’s advocacy efforts have led to program and form updates at Manitoba Families that streamline disability-related requests and reduce physician signature requirements.

Public health has stopped asking for weekly inventory reports for COVID-19 vaccine supply and extra documentation for patient consent for every immunization.

Doctors are also no longer required to report start and end times for all virtual appointments they complete or submit face sheets, otherwise known as duplicate records created by physicians for hospital inpatient discharges.

Public-sector leader Paul Pierlot and Keir Johnson, who oversees physician engagement initiatives at Doctors Manitoba, were tapped to co-lead the above work.

Based on a survey of more than 1,000 professionals, their initial report indicated doctors spend an average of 10 hours per week on administrative duties.

The May 2023 briefing suggested private insurers and government organizations were primarily responsible for inundating professionals with paperwork.

During the six months that followed, the task force met with 38 organizations and departments identified as “burden owners.”

“They have all been supportive, open to helping, and in many cases, have initiated burden reduction projects. This is a significant and positive sign of the collective interest and commitment to reducing administrative time and complexity for physicians’ work as Manitoba confronts a significant physician shortage,” states an excerpt from the newest report.

The February 2024 document calls on employers and other entities that require doctors to complete administrative tasks to adopt a “burden reduction lens.”

The committee is recommending any changes to status-quo processes reduce administrative requirements and take physicians’ input into account.

While touting local successes, the authors note Nova Scotia has a goal of reducing unnecessary clerical tasks by 400,000 hours.

“This suggests there is far more to be accomplished in Manitoba,” per the document.

The task force’s mandate was extended from an initial end date of December 2023.

In continuing to reduce burdensome workloads, its members are identifying opportunities to streamline patient sick notes and return-to-work documentation, among other initiatives.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter

Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie.

Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.