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Cover Story: Physician Burnout Increasing
Selfies to Self-diagnosis:

Algorithm ‘Amps Up’ as Demands on Doctors Grow
Continued from page 1
Smartphones quality metrics to understanding reim bursement— appointed by the chief of staff to help evaluate any
there are stressors that weren’t there in the 1980s and referred medical staff members. The goal is to encour-
to Diagnose Disease ‘90s. age physicians to take advantage of programs within
“This is especially difficult for solo practitioners or the hospital or to use outside resources as needed,
Accessible, connected, and computationally power- small groups that don’t have the support they need to which may include clinical or mental health services,
ful, smartphones aren’t just for “selfies” anymore. They meet all of the administrative demands caused by new substance abuse evaluation and treatment, fitness for
have emerged as powerful evaluation tools capable of changes in medicine,” he added. duty evaluation, or other social services such as finan-
diagnosing medical conditions in point-of-care settings. There are a number of ways in which burnout can cial or legal information.
Smartphones also are a viable solution for health care in manifest. To monitor their risk, Dr. Ta suggests that The strategy, according to Dr. Ta, is to stay one step
the developing world because they allow untrained physicians do a regular self-assessment looking for ahead of physician burnout by keeping an open line of
users to collect and transmit data to medical profession- factors like a lack of fulfillment or enjoyment in the communication, and monitoring physicians and prac-
als. job; loss of purpose; loss of control or autonomy in a tice managers to make sure that their needs—both
Although smartphone camera technology today practice, and the fact that these issues are beginning to administrative and clinical—are met.
offers a wide range of medical applications such as affect their personal lives. “We have a very active Employee Assistance
microscopy and cytometric analysis, in practice, cell “Whether or not a physician asks for help depends Program (EAP) that includes trained psychologists
phone image tests have limitations that severely restrict on the individual; physicians are notoriously bad and other personnel who provide counseling services
their utility. Addressing these limitations requires exter- patients,” said Dr. Ta. “But in many cases, it isn’t until to employees and eligible family members, and who
nal smartphone hardware to obtain quantitative results a physician approaches us saying that they want to go offer work-life resources and programs for profession-
– imposing a design tradeoff between accessibility and part-time or take a leave of absence that we know al and personal development,” said Dr. Ta.
accuracy. there’s a real problem. Still others will leave the field Broward employees can visit on-site and communi-
Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s completely. ty-based EAP clinicians that include licensed psychol-
College of Engineering and Computer Science have “A lot of the more seasoned physicians who have ogists, marriage and family therapists, clinical social
developed a novel cell phone imaging algorithm that had their own practices don’t want to deal with the workers and mental health counselors who specialize
enables analysis of assays typically evaluated via spec- changes in medicine that require them to be evaluated in a variety of clinical areas. EAP services are also
troscopy, a highly sophisticated and powerful device on everything from productivity to quality metrics, to available to non-employed medical staff members.
used in scientific research. patient satisfaction scores—things other than direct Employees are made aware of the available
Through the analysis of more than 10,000 images, bedside patient care,” he added. resources during their orientations, and it is also part
the researchers have been able to demonstrate that the In order to help physicians avoid burnout, the of the benefits package that they apply for every year.
saturation method they developed consistently outper- Broward Health Physician Group has systems in place There is also information on the system’s Intranet for
formed existing algorithms under a wide range of oper- to evaluate doctors regularly to make sure that they hospital employees.
ating field conditions. Their findings, published in the are still productive employees, and to provide assis- “We recognize that physician burnout is a real prob-
journal Analyst of the Royal Society of Chemistry, is a tance if they need help. “We meet on a quarterly basis lem, so our goal is to increase awareness and allocate
step forward in developing point-of-care diagnostics by with the senior vice president of the ambulatory divi- the resources needed to address the situation,” said
reducing the need for required equipment, improving sion to find out what’s going on in the practices, and Dr. Ta.
the limit of detection, and increasing the precision of how we can help meet physicians’ needs,” said Dr. Ta.
quantitative results. Furthermore, each hospital within the Broward To learn more, visit Broward Health
Health system has a Physician Wellness Committee at www.browardhealth.org.

12 March 2019 southfloridahospitalnews.com South Florida Hospital News