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The State of Clinical Support Staff

Research insights on support staff burnout, its impact on patient care, and trends in patient communication.

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The first two years of the pandemic pushed clinical support staff to their limits. From disruptions to in-person care, massive amounts of coordination, new regulatory requirements and more, the stress created by ineffective patient communication, exacerbated by the pandemic, led to epic levels of burnout.

In the year since, as we approach the three-year mark of the pandemic’s onset, much has changed in the healthcare system, including a surge in digital innovation.

So, how have these trends affected staff? We wanted to find out. In a new report of more than 300 clinical support staff including nurses, physician assistants, frontdesk/reception and other medical professionals, we found that burnout and other problems are still high yet on the decline.

Read the free report to learn more.

2022 Report

Key Findings

Clinical support staff burnout remains high, though lower than pandemic peak

In 2022

%
report moderate to severe burnout
%
of whom rated it as high or severe

In 2021

%
reported moderate to severe burnout
%
of whom rated it as high or severe

Adoption of digital patient communication tools continues to increase

%
reported texting, emailing and digitally messaging with patients more frequently than they did in the early days of the pandemic

Clinical support staff burnout impacts care quality

%
report their burnout negatively impacted patient care quality
%
say their burnout has been noticed by a patient
%
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 to the report, clinical support staff believe this about digital patient communication

%
believe it allows patients to engage more in their health
%
think it increases access to healthcare
%
say it helps address disparities for underserved patients
%
feel it helps address social determinants of health
Additionally,
%
believe communicating in the patient’s preferred language improves healthcare access
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Check out the full report

without having to give us your email address!

Meg-Aranow-photo

"The wellbeing of clinical support staff has a cascading impact on healthcare. In many ways, they are the front lines of care, and they often are among the first to engage and set the tone for the rest of the care journey. Addressing their burnout is critical for provider success and delivering patient-centered care that results in better health outcomes."

Meg Aranow
SVP, Platform Evangelist, Artera

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How Artera Improves Staff Burnout

The report suggests one of the biggest factors in alleviating staff burnout is the use of digital patient communications which help to ease staff workloads by:

patient-scheduler-remote
Automating time-consuming patient communication
introduction-to-healthcare-communication
Reducing the number of phone calls
patient-self-scheduling
Eliminating repetitive tasks

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.

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