Technology can help redesign work processes in healthcare, Rob Allen, president and CEO of Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health, said in an Oct. 18 podcast with consulting firm A&M.
"I do think we need to rebuild the work in healthcare. We can't hire enough people today to fill the jobs we have. We need to redesign the jobs so they're doable," he said. "A lot of that, I believe, technology can help us with."
Mr. Allen said Intermountain is piloting new technologies to do this. One of the tools it is using is ambient dictation, which its physicians, who have piloted the technology, have said has cut down their after-work hours spent charting.
"Many reported up to two hours a day [in saved] time," he said. "For a doctor, that's a game changer."
Mr. Allen said the dictation tool has given back time to physicians so they can "fill out their lives in a way that's meaningful to them."
"We think it's important that we take advantage of that to redefine the care flow, make it more simple, take the administrative burdens off, and we think we can impact care from an outcome, from an experience perspective," he said.