Artera Report Finds Clinical Staff Burnout Remains High, Though Down From Peak Pandemic

Second Annual Study Among Clinical Support Staff Finds Digital Patient Communication Tools on the Rise and Believed to Improve Patient Access and Outcomes 

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., December 20, 2022 – Artera (formerly WELL Health), a SaaS digital health leader in patient communications and the 2021 and 2022 Best in KLAS winner in Patient Outreach,  today released its second annual report, State of Clinical Support Staff, which looks at clinical support staff burnout, its impact on patient care and trends in patient communication. This year’s findings paint a different picture than last year’s report, which was commissioned during the peak of the pandemic. While still high, this year’s study found that 70 percent of clinical support staff report moderate to severe burnout, but that’s lower than last year when burnout levels among the same group were extremely high at nearly 90 percent.

“The report reinforces what we consistently see with our customers: digital patient communication can save staff time, improve their wellbeing and enhance patient care,” said Guillaume de Zwirek, CEO and Founder, Artera (formerly WELL Health).

The report surveyed more than 300 clinical support staff who are responsible for communicating with patients, which can include nurses, physicians assistants, front desk/reception and other medical professionals communicating directly with patients.

Key Findings Included:

• Clinical support staff burnout remains high, though lower than pandemic peak
  • 70 percent report moderate to severe burnout, with 32 percent rating it as high or severe (down from 2021 report: 88 percent reported moderate to severe burnout and 56 percent reported high or severe).
• Adoption of digital patient communications tools continues to increase
  • 48 percent are texting, emailing and digitally messaging with patients more frequently than early days of the pandemic.
• Clinical support staff burnout impacts care quality
  • 33 percent report their burnout negatively impacted patient care quality. 
  • 41 percent say their burnout has been noticed by a patient. 
  • 43 percent report at least one instance where poor or ineffective patient communication processes negatively impacted a patient’s health.
• Clinical support staff believe digital patient communication can help improve access and outcomes 
  • According the report, clinical support staff believe digital patient communication: 
    • Allows patients to engage more in their health (64 percent).
    • Increases access to healthcare (78 percent). 
    • Helps address disparities for underserved patients (67 percent).
    • Helps address social determinants of health for their patient populations (71 percent). 
  • Additionally, 85 percent of clinical support staff believe communicating in the patient’s preferred language will improve healthcare access. 

To download the full report, visit Artera’s State of Clinical Support Staff webpage.

About Artera (formerly WELL Health)

Artera is the SaaS digital health leader in patient communications and two-time Best in KLAS winner in Patient Outreach. Artera delivers a platform-level patient communications solution that integrates across a health system’s tech stack (EHRs/EMRs, single-point solutions, apps, and more) to deliver patients a simple, cohesive communications experience while reducing workload for healthcare staff. By unifying disjointed communications and information into a single channel for patients (texting, email and/or IVR) Artera fuels healthcare providers to deliver healthier patients, more efficient staff and more profitable organizations. The Artera platform helps 500+ unique health systems facilitate 1.1 billion messages for 40+ million patients. 

Founded in 2015, Artera (formerly WELL Health) is based in Santa Barbara, California and has been named on the 2021 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and ranked on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies for three consecutive years. For more information, visit www.artera.io. 

*Artera (formerly WELL Health) rebranded in October 2022, more information about the rebrand is available here. 

Methodology The survey was conducted by PureSpectrum, an independent market research platform that gathers insights via online, nonprobability samples collected from panels in the PureSpectrum Marketplace. For more information on PureSpectrum’s methodology, visit purespectrum.com.