Healthcare providers have positive, meaningful experiences when they have focused and successful patient encounters. Sadly, the experience can be frustrating and demoralizing when fighting mountains of paperwork, prior authorizations, and inefficient processes.  

These interactions are important to physicians, nurses, and other care providers as they compose a large portion of the workday. When providers are empowered and supported, they have more satisfying experiences and are equipped to deliver better care—from more accurate diagnoses to improved patient communication.  

Provider experiences are woven into many moments that define quality of care. Clinician burnout, stressful work environments, and lack of technological support can make clinical tasks more difficult for providers. This guide outlines factors that impact provider experiences, potential barriers to improving experiences, and ways organizations can overcome these challenges to create ideal care experiences for clinicians and care teams.  

How Do Patient Experiences Impact Providers?

Healthcare experiences include numerous people and interactions, from early encounters to follow-up care and billing. Patient experiences are the individual experiences a person has as they navigate care for their illness or injury. This includes self-service tasks, such as booking appointments online, interactions with staff via phone or in-person, and experiences people have with their provider, such as medical procedures, post-procedure consultations, and ongoing communication with clinicians.    

Care experiences are the experiences of clinicians providing care. These care experiences are also called provider experiences. Why is it important to recognize both patient and provider experiences in healthcare? First, to acknowledge that patients experience healthcare differently than providers, and to ensure that efforts to improve patient experiences include consideration for the potential impacts to provider experiences.  

For example, as healthcare organizations strive to deliver hyper-personalized patient care, initiatives should include provider perspectives to clarify impacts on provider workloads, workflows, and schedules. Finally, provider experiences are increasingly critical in healthcare as they affect care delivery and have a measurable impact on healthcare outcomes.

Which Factors Impact Provider Experiences?

Care Operations 

Healthcare operations, also called care operations, are the activities required to run a healthcare organization and support its core functions. These general administrative, financial, legal, and quality improvement tasks, along with case management and care coordination, are necessary to deliver care and ensure an organization receives proper payment. 

• Ensure peak system performance: Systems that healthcare providers rely on every day, like electronic health record (EHR) systems, must be optimized to ensure peak performance for the staff using them. The other disparate applications that feed into the EHR must be seamlessly integrated so that ancillary services are available to caregivers to provide the services that patients need.  

• Support top-of-license care with the right tools: Healthcare providers can gain efficiency and practice at the top of their license by leveraging EHR-integrated tools that support new models of care and optimized outcomes. These include:  
  • Clinical decision support
  • Telehealth platforms
  • Task management and workflow automation
  • Care coordination software
  • Patient engagement
  • Data analytics and reporting

• Bridge the communication gap: Clear communication in healthcare provides a bridge between teams and departments, enabling seamless collaboration, reduced errors, and ultimately, better patient satisfaction. Open dialogue improves provider experiences by fostering trust and enabling a unified response to complex healthcare challenges. 

Organizations must cultivate an environment that not only values and respects providers but also actively contributes to the enhancement of their roles.

JASON FORDSenior Managing Consultant, Care Operations, Tegria

Organizational Support

Successful healthcare requires systems that support both people and care delivery. As Jason Ford, Tegria Senior Managing Consultant, said, “Organizations must cultivate an environment that not only values and respects providers but also actively contributes to the enhancement of their roles.” 

Advanced equipment enhances care, while administrative support frees providers to deliver it. Investing in organizational support and fostering clear communication empowers teams, reduces errors, and ultimately improves patient outcomes.  

• Address organizational informatics: Healthcare organizations need to manage the complexity of integrating information technology (IT), operations, and clinical care. This involves harnessing the health systems’ EHR and other technology to enhance provider workflows and provide a more comprehensive, holistic view of patient information and evidence-based recommendations. 
• Deliver provider-supporting tools: The goal is to free up healthcare providers so they can focus on what matters most: delivering high-quality care to their patients. It is essential to support today’s providers with the right mix of tools that reduce administrative burden and promote new care models with automated workflows, care team collaboration, and streamlined communications among caregivers and with patients. Point-of-care tools and advanced hardware are more than diagnostic aids. They facilitate better workflows, enhance data capture and sharing, and empower better decision-making. When thoughtfully deployed using provider feedback, these tools have the power to strengthen care teams and patient relationships, while simultaneously optimizing organizational efficiency.  

When a provider enters a room and activates AI, it will capture the key points of the conversation with the patient in real time. This allows the provider to remain fully present with the patient—maintaining eye contact, actively listening, and providing care. This is a significant step toward reconnecting providers with their patients.

GREG IRWINSenior Managing Consultant, Care Operations, Tegria

• Establish change management: Just as technology can become complex and hinder clinical use, so can operations. Healthcare organizations that want to change technologies or streamline processes must manage complexity and involve care providers and other stakeholders in the change. Establishing a change management framework and strategy will help ease the process.     
• Invest in professional development: It is essential to invest in healthcare providers' professional development. Upskilled clinicians deliver better patient care, they know how to use evolving technologies, and they foster learning within their own teams. 

Performance Management

Healthcare performance management goes beyond simple productivity metrics. It now considers value-based care and population health outcomes, aligning provider performance with broader patient well-being. If done right, health systems can improve provider experiences by managing performance more fairly and sharing accountability in achieving optimal healthcare goals. 

• Focus on quality metrics: Some traditional metrics in healthcare, like patient volume, can incentivize rushing through visits, potentially compromising quality of care. Now, the focus is shifting toward value-based care, where quality outcomes and population health from better preventive care and chronic disease management are indicators of success. 
• Seek alternative payment models: Traditional fee-for-service models incentivize healthcare providers to see more patients and not necessarily deliver better care. Value-based care and population health models center on quality outcomes and population health, rewarding providers for managing patients proactively, preventing complications, and improving overall health. 
• Enhance compensation: Value-based care and population health emphasize quality, efficiency, patient outcomes, and preventive care. This creates a financial environment where organizations are rewarded for delivering superior care at lower costs, aligning sustainable healthcare delivery with enhanced compensation.  

What's Hurting Providers Today?

Healthcare is rapidly changing, and several factors are making it more difficult for care providers to complete their work efficiently and effectively. These include:

• Administrative burden: Busy providers want to do the work they are trained to do—deliver care—but manual tasks such as clinical notes, inputting data into the EHR, and more, drain time from their already packed schedules.   
• Productivity pressure: Care providers are seeing higher patient volumes, and at the same time, they must be efficient as fee-for-service and other incentives push providers to increase volume. When payment is tied to productivity, it contributes to clinician burnout and frustration. This is particularly pronounced when organizations use both fee-for-service and pay-for-performance. These providers are pressured to increase both volume and quality, often without adequate support. 
• Work-life balance: Juggling long hours, demanding duties, and emotional burdens, healthcare providers struggle to manage their own well-being while ensuring quality of care. 
• Lack of support: It is easy for care providers to feel overwhelmed when they face insufficient staffing, resources, and clear guidance. They must meet patient needs and deliver high-quality outcomes while also navigating high-stress situations that breed frustration and contribute to burnout. "When healthcare organizations had to streamline costs due to the pandemic, it led to a reduction in teams that provide technological, administrative, and operational assistance to providers,” explained Ford. 
• Expanding technology footprint: The ever-expanding mix of applications both within and outside of an EHR creates friction for providers, consuming valuable time they need for patient interaction. Streamlining technology solutions and optimizing workflows are crucial to ensuring the well-being of healthcare professionals and the financial viability of healthcare institutions.  
• Industry consolidation: Mergers and acquisitions and consolidation among healthcare organizations may offer economies of scale, but it can also add pressure to care providers. For instance, larger systems may have standardized protocols and workflows that don't allow for personalization of care, potentially reducing the quality of patient interactions. 

Creating Wins for Provider Clients

Why Are Organizations Struggling To Improve Provider Experiences?  

Many providers are facing an uphill battle in their quest to improve care experiences due to several factors. One major hurdle is technology limitations. Outdated and inefficient systems can create frustrating user experiences for both providers and patients alike. These limitations include things like clunky interfaces, data silos, and lack of interoperability between applications. Combined, these issues hinder efficient communication, access to information, and clinical workflows.  

In today’s challenging fiscal climate, most health systems face budget constraints. Organizations operating with limited financial resources cannot adequately invest in new technologies, hire staff, or provide training opportunities. This lack of investment creates a cycle where overworked and under-resourced providers struggle to deliver personalized and efficient care. 

Ever-evolving regulations add another layer of complexity. While regulations play a vital role in ensuring patient safety and quality of care, compliance requirements can create administrative burdens and limit flexibility, which affects provider experience.  

Improving experiences in healthcare requires a multi-pronged approach that addresses technology limitations, fosters a culture of innovation, invests in adequate resources, and streamlines regulatory requirements.  

How Can We Address Barriers To Improve Provider Experiences?  

The well-being and satisfaction of healthcare providers are critical to ensuring high-quality patient care. However, several barriers can negatively impact the provider experience. Fortunately, healthcare systems can address these challenges and begin to build a positive and supportive environment for providers and all care teams. 

A wise place to start is improving care operations by modernizing systems and workflows. Streamlining processes, investing in new technologies, and allocating adequate staff can significantly reduce administrative burdens and allow providers to focus on delivering high-quality care more efficiently. 

Healthcare leaders must take an active role in prioritizing provider experiences and building a supportive and inclusive culture. Promoting open communication, collaboration, and respect will create an environment in which individual contributions are recognized and morale is elevated among providers. 

Almost half of physicians (48%) face burnout^*

Yet even in supportive cultures, provider burnout is still possible. The American Medical Association reports that almost half of physicians face burnout. Investing in mental health support and wellness programs is critical to prevent burnout. Offering resources, training, and support for work-life balance can empower providers to prioritize their well-being and manage stress effectively.  

By addressing these key barriers, healthcare systems can create a more positive and rewarding experience for their providers. This, in turn, leads to increased satisfaction, less provider burnout, and ultimately, improved patient care.