Workplace Efficiency & Function

Faculty members can avail themselves of these programs and tools. The programs include:

• Epic EMR Optimization Program: This program aims to improve clinician and staff satisfaction, optimize clinical decision support, and increase revenue capture, all while adhering to regulatory and patient safety standards.
• Epic Physician Builder Program: This effort provides selected physicians with training and certification in Epic's customization tools. Physician builders learn to create and modify order sets, documentation templates, dashboards, and clinical decision support tools with the Digital and Technology Partners (DTP) partnership. This program ensures that Epic is tailored to meet the specific needs of clinicians while maintaining compliance with regulatory and organizational policies.
• Epic Physician Champion Program: This program is designed for clinicians who advocate for Epic adoption and optimization. Physician champions facilitate training, promote best practices, and provide critical feedback to DTP teams regarding system usability. They act as liaisons between end users and the DTP department, ensuring that the Epic system aligns with clinical needs and enhances operational efficiency.
• Fluency Direct: This speech-to-text solution lets you create, edit, and sign clinical notes directly within Epic in real time. You navigate Epic by speaking into a microphone or smartphone rather than using a mouse. This approach increases provider satisfaction, improves documentation quality, can be used remotely, and provides cost savings. The expenses involved are:
• License: $595.00 per year per user
• Hardware: $300.00 per microphone (free mobile app available)
• Training: Peak training available or $216.00 per hour for an M*Modal trainer
• Dragon Copilot: This dictation product uses artificial intelligence to generate electronic health record encounter note entries during doctor visits. It records visits on your smartphone, distinguishes between the provider and patient voices, extracts key concepts from the transcript, and generates notes. You can then edit and sign the notes. If you are interested in this product, please reach out to your practice, divisional and/or department leadership as licenses will be distributed through departments and practices.

Committees, grants, and initiatives include:

• Epic InBasket Management Committee: Our office, in partnership with Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice and Epic, works to improve the InBasket management experience for you and your patients. Email owbr@mssm.edufor more information.
• REDuCE Electronic Health Record and Clinical Burden Reduction Grants: Our grant program, offered on a periodic basis, supports innovations that improve team efficiency, optimize electronic record functioning, and enhance team communications. Email owbr@mssm.edufor more information.

Previous grantees include 16 recipients across five cycles from 2020 to 2024 and have supported projects spanning numerous departments. Most have focused on either hiring staff to reduce physician workload or creating electronic health record and workflow optimizations. Examples include hiring patient coordinators to manage calls, employing medical assistants to triage portal requests, and developing new Employee Health Resources templates and express lanes for pediatric visits.

Funded projects have demonstrated measurable impact. For example, a geriatrics “in-basket” coordinator project reduced physician call-center messages by 23 percent and improved physician well-being and an oncology registry project streamlined prior authorizations and yielded an estimated $7 million in cost savings.

Some REDuCE initiatives have been sustained through departmental and Health System-level support and expanded across sites. An in-basket triage pilot, for instance, has grown from three sites to more than 60 ambulatory locations through collaboration with DTP and the faculty practice. Grantees have also shared their work at national meetings, submitted manuscripts for publication, and earned additional funding to study outcomes.

Our residents and clinical fellows can participate in a variety of opportunities. These include:

• GME Wellness Days: Trainees have specified wellness days each academic year in addition to other leave time (e.g., sick days and vacation leave) to attend to personal health and wellness. We structure this to minimize disruptions to patient care and training. For further information, please review the Expectations for the Promotion of Trainee Well-being and contact your program leadership.
• GME Expectations for Promotion of Trainee Well-being: The Graduate Medical Education Committee is committed to maintaining meaning in work and professional fulfillment for physician trainees across the Health System. We aim to promote a culture supportive of the psychological, emotional, and physical well-being of all trainees. We recognize that we cannot improve trainee well-being without addressing faculty well-being, so we work in conjunction with existing faculty-level wellness interventions. We anticipate that departments will focus on resident and clinical fellow well-being as laid out in Expectations for the Promotion of Trainee Well-being. This includes: 
• Education-to-service balance
• Work hours, leave, and coverage
• Trainee health needs
• Faculty mentorship programs
• Wellness curriculum
• Enforcement, evaluation, and monitoring