The Role of Healthcare Tech in Reducing Clinician Burnout

Matt Sullivan, Solution Thought Leader at Wolters Kluwer, Health

Increases in patient demands, healthcare costs, and workloads are leaving healthcare professionals feeling underappreciated and overworked. A 2024 meta-analysis of studies on healthcare worker burnout determined that over 40% of professionals were struggling with feelings of burnout. Those healthcare professionals who spent more time on tasks related to electronic health records (EHRs) were 2.43 times more likely to experience mental stress and fatigue.

Fragmented digital workflows – including EHRs, inbox systems, and niche point solutions – are a proven driver of clinician exhaustion. Research has shown that in order for primary care physicians in the U.S. to follow every national guideline and recommendation for preventive, chronic disease, and acute care, they would need to work an impossible 26.7 hours a day. Technology helps add efficiency to clinicians’ days, but no matter how innovative healthcare tech has become, too many screens and context-switching between solutions is leading to a drop-off in professional engagement and adding to burnout.

Digital health platforms are under pressure to deliver measurable clinician satisfaction, speed, and clinical impact. But at the same time many are losing adoption due to workflow friction. Developers are discovering the key to retaining users, keeping them in the platform, and delivering the support they need without further contributing to feelings of frustration and burnout is integrating seamless, evidence-based clinical decision-making into their solution workflow at the moment of care.

Workflow friction hurts healthcare professionals

Digital platforms are meant to introduce convenience, connectivity, and enhanced care outcomes for healthcare organizations and their medical staff. When a platform can meet clinicians where they are – delivering content that’s already a part of their daily practice within a seamless workflow experience – professionals are more likely to have confidence in it and use it consistently.

No matter how trusted and convenient a digital health platform is, it is still viewed as just “tech” by clinical users if it creates the following concerns:

1. Workflow friction: Too many point solutions pull clinical users in and out of their primary workflow, creating frustration. Constant context-switching and slow information retrieval drain their productivity.

2. Data and AI risk: Siloed data and unverified AI outputs undermine healthcare professionals’ trust, create compliance concerns, and risk a platform’s credibility.

3. Clinician fatigue: Every extra click or delay adds to burnout, reducing tool usage and loyalty and risking renewal revenue.

Building trust with embedded clinical intelligence 

Embedded clinical decision support (CDS) solutions integrate trusted, real-time medical resources directly into a healthcare platform’s workflow, delivering a seamless experience that saves time, builds confidence, and keeps clinicians in that platform. 

The average clinician will need to address between 15-20 tough questions every day within the course of their patient care workload. They count on CDS solutions to deliver clinical intelligence, evidence-based guidance, and the latest best practices to help support their decisions. But clinicians can’t be confident and comfortable if those resources haven’t earned their trust through years of proven outcomes, reliable editorial processes and expert contributors, and a nuanced approach to medicine that complements the clinician’s own practice. Without that foundation of trust, especially when incorporating AI-enhanced tools, the information is just more distraction adding to their cognitive load.

Introducing UpToDate Connect

Wolters Kluwer’s new solution, UpToDate® Connect, offers digital health tech developers an API integration that enables developers to embed authoritative, real-time clinical content in their applications to give clinicians immediate and context-sensitive access to reliable answers when facing complex or high-stakes medical decisions. 

UpToDate Connect is a must-have for advanced clinician workflows in value-based care platforms, AI-enabled ambient clinical documentation solutions, and EMRs/EHRs:

• Keeps clinicians in platform.

• Reduces burnout with fewer clicks and less context-switching.

• Enhances speed to answers and satisfaction for clinicians.

• Frees up dev teams to focus on core product needs.

• Helps the platform build trust and loyalty among users.

This integration streamlines workflows, supports confident decision-making, and drives better patient outcomes, as well as supporting emerging AI and agentic healthcare workflows. Plus, it infuses platform workflows with the power of UpToDate®, the evidence-based clinical resource trusted by clinicians globally for over 30 years for its rigorous editorial process and its unwavering commitment to providing healthcare professionals with clear recommendations and actionable clinical information no matter how routine, complex, or nuanced their question.

Embedding a globally trusted clinical resource like UpToDate doesn’t just improve user experience, it signals to buyers and investors that a digital health platform is more than a point solution, it’s a complete, end-to-end solution that meets the highest standards of evidence and safety with a commitment to addressing issues related to burnout and friction.

Learn more about UpToDate Connect for digital health tech developers.

Matt Sullivan, a solution thought leader at Wolters Kluwer, Health, specializes in new product innovation with emphasis on virtual care and digital health solutions.