Type in “reasons for shortage of primary-care physicians” into Google and you will be led to almost 3 million responses. Most of these articles list the same few reasons including:
- The lack of financial stability involved in going into primary-care medicine
- A shortage of primary-care residency positions
- The current state of primary-care, where physicians see too many patients per day while navigating through the convoluted web of medical insurance
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Now type in “how to solve the primary-care physician shortage” into Google. Again, you will be bombarded with millions of articles, many of which discuss trying to utilize the power of other health professionals some of which include nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, dietitians, and psychologists. While this seems like a viable solution, the most obvious impediment is communication between these different health providers. Currently, the primary-care physician serves as a reference point between their patients and a sea of other healthcare providers. This only reinforces the current problem with primary-care, where physicians are reaching a cognitive overload. So what can be done to solve this problem? Or more specifically:
Can advances in technology help a primary-care physician maximize their limited time?
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The limited time between a physician and patient is one of the greatest problems in managing complex health problems. One potential solution, mobile applications, allow a physician to be kept up to date on a patient’s progress. Currently, applications allow patients to track various health parameters associated with their chronic condition, and send a report of these results to their doctor. However, the information sent their doctor is often in an unorganized format and is highly variable in form due to the large volume of mobile applications available on the market. In order for this solution to be effective in maximizing the physician’s time, the information must be conveyed in a standard format, and must be available to the physician prior to the appointment.
The other communication problem that drains the time and energy of primary-care physicians is trying to coordinate care with other health providers. Many primary-care physicians still coordinate care over the phone, which can be extremely time-consuming. We need to find ways to streamline communication among different providers. This could include a redesign of electronic health records to better facilitate between physician communication, or an app which not only links a patient to their different providers, but the different providers to each other.
While these changes alone will not solve the primary-care physician shortage we will face in the coming years, they will allow a primary care physician to maximize their time with a patient during a 20-minute appointment. This will lead to better health outcomes, which is the ultimate goal of medicine.