Over the course of the last 18 months, you’ve likely heard many conversations about topics relating to Joy in Medicine, provider satisfaction and clinician burnout. Whether at Grand Rounds, during a DOM focus group, in a school-wide survey or from a podcast by the dean, you’ve heard that burnout is a very real issue nationally and here at Johns Hopkins. Department of Medicine leadership aims to foster an environment in which our providers feel valued, understand their roles in the larger context of Johns Hopkins Medicine, and are motivated to provide the best patient care every day. As such, the Clinical Affairs team has been actively engaged in developing solutions for the problems that have been identified as drivers of frustration for clinicians and trainees in the clinical space.
From an ambulatory perspective, Kim Peairs, Mary Jo Appel and their team have worked to:
- Increase the amount of 1:1 Epic support for faculty in need of assistance in optimizing Epic utilization
- Pilot the increased use of scribes in some of our busiest clinics, including the utilization of a new scribe program staffed by recent Hopkins grads and coordinated by JHCP
- Develop and disseminate standard practices and procedures for Ambulatory Services Managers across DOM, in order to provide more consistent administrative support to our practices overall
On the inpatient side, Carrie Herzke, Sarah Disney and their team have worked to:
- Develop and pilot a new approach to patients who present with challenging behavioral issues in order to provide more consistent support to providers caring for these patient and in an effort to also decrease workplace violence
- Revise and re-deploy home health orders sets in Epic in order to streamline the discharge process for those needing home health
- Enlist the help of pharmacy in facilitating the prior authorization process
On a department-wide basis, we are working to:
- Provide a meaningful orientation to new DOM faculty to lay the foundation for success as part of the Hopkins family
- Leverage the collective skills and wisdom of our divisions through the engagement of a new Clinical Directors Council that engages in collective problem solving and the sharing of best practices
- Revamp and streamline the credentialing process in order to make it more timely, efficient and user-friendly
- Highlight the extraordinary clinical work being done here in the DOM every day through the development of an annual Clinical Retreat
Although there is plenty of work left to be done, the team is excited about the momentum that is building within DOM and across the School to bring meaningful change to clinical practice at Johns Hopkins. If you are interested in learning more about any of the above activities, please feel free to contact me at lee.biddison@jhmi.edu.
Thanks for all the amazing work you are doing!
-Lee Daugherty Biddison, Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs
