UTSC undergrad’s research helps measure physician administrative burden

Physician burnout has been a significant topic of discussion in healthcare. While technology is a tool that can simplify tasks, a developing project at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering is exploring how design inefficiencies impact productivity.

“The main reason physicians are reporting burnout from digital tools is due to the poor design of electronic medical and health records,” says Ethan Gibson, a fourth-year double major in human biology and mental health studies at U of T Scarborough. 

“It makes it more cognitively demanding to use the tools and get things done within them.”

With the help of the Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA), Gibson worked alongside Associate Professor Enid Montague at the Wellness and Health Enhancement Engineering (WHEEL) Lab this past summer.

Through literature reviews, Gibson identified four common metrics for assessing administrative burden: time-based, cognitive load, workload inefficiency, and perceived burden and satisfaction metrics.

He offered recommendations for improving the measurement of administrative burden, which included measuring the overall cognitive efforts and demands imposed by multitasking, workflow interruptions of clinical processes due to administrative tasks and the number of steps or clicks required to complete tasks within electronic health or medical records.

Gibson’s USRA experience introduced him to human factors engineering and how it can be applied to the broad field of psychology. As his first venture into research, Gibson found the experience rewarding and encourages other undergraduates to jump into research opportunities early in their academic careers. 

“I realized that as a psychology major, I can make an impact in human factors engineering,” Gibson says. 

The USRA program is administered jointly by Canada’s three granting agencies: NSERC, CIHR and SSHRC. It offers students in participating universities the opportunity to engage in meaningful research projects.

If you are interested in pursuing the USRA program at the University of Toronto, we encourage you to contact the professor you wish to work with. For questions about the application process, email: philip.asare@utoronto.ca

Are you a Black undergraduate in a STEMM program who is wondering about getting involved in research? Attend the Canadian Black Scientists Network’s Black Excellence (BE)-STEMM Undergraduate Research Information Session on Feb. 26.