Time-Saving Strategies

Establishing workflows that support team-based care will enhance your practice productivity and your patients’ experience. This collection of AMA STEPS Forward^® practice innovation strategies offers proven approaches to save time with documentation, pre-visit planning, patient care registries, prescription renewals and more.

• Playbooks: Collections of related interventions
  • Saving Time Playbook Learn how to stop the unnecessary work and share the necessary work. These time-saving strategies help physicians focus on the work that matters.
  • Taming the EHR Playbook Your EHR system may feel like an unfixable problem. Learn strategies to maximize team-based care, throw out unnecessary rules and optimize proficiency with EHR technology.
• Podcasts
  • Debunking Regulatory Myths Better understand regulations and standards, potentially eliminating unnecessary work, decreasing burnout and professional dissatisfaction.
  • Treating Attention as an Asset Elizabeth Harry, MD, senior medical director of well-being at UCHealth, discusses change fatigue and how cognitive load has an impact on health care providers.
  • How a Telephone Consultation Model Eased Call Burden for Frontline Specialists Alfred Atanda Jr., MD, director of clinician well-being at Nemours Children’s Health in Florida, explains how to reduce the burden with time-saving pilots.
  • Reducing Pajama Time and Work Outside of Work (WOW) Melissa Reily, MD, and Melissa Wolf, MD, co-directors of physician wellness at Bozeman Health in Montana, discuss strategies to cut down on work outside of office hours.
  • Improve Practice Efficiency with EHR “Quick Wins” A practice can implement “quick win” systemic adjustments, such as badge logins and synchronized refills, explains Nigel Girgrah, MD, chief wellness officer at Ochsner Health in New Orleans.
  • Electronic Health Record Optimization Daniel Dunham, MD, MPH, FACP, chairman of medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, explains how eliminating unnecessary clicks and other time-saving tricks can help save hundreds of hours in the EHR.
  • Taming the EHR Medical practices may have more control than originally thought. Save hundreds of hours with EHR tips and tricks that will help you get back to meaningful work.
• Webinars
  • Challenges to Team-Based Care Kevin Hopkins, MD, primary care medical director at Cleveland Clinic Community Care, explains how a team-based care model works and how to manage challenges from COVID-19, telemedicine, developing the clinical support team and more.
  • Telehealth and Team-Based Care Hear an expert’s perspective on the shift to telemedicine, improving collaboration and engagement, and negotiating potential pitfalls.
  • Navigating the Current Health Care Landscape Marie Brown, MD, MACP, director of practice redesign at the AMA, discusses COVID-19, the staffing crisis and administrative burdens.
  • Developing Clinically Integrated Networks and Other Innovative Contracting Models Learn about innovative value-based contracting models in the context of strategic, financial, risk, legal and regulatory considerations.
  • Cutting Edge Issues in Physician Compensation Understand some of the issues and options physician practices are considering as they rethink their physician compensation models.
  • Medical Assistants: Recruitment and Retention Marie Brown, MD, MACP, director of practice redesign at the AMA, describes how to make the best use of medical assistants and successfully incorporate them into a team-based care model.
  • Behavioral Health in Practice: Establishing Efficient Workflows Learn to integrate behavioral health care into practice workflows for a seamless experience for patients and the care team.
  • Assembling the BHI Care Team: Roles and Responsibilities Get tips on identifying practice needs, training care team members and assigning roles and responsibilities to better address patient behavioral health needs in this webinar co-hosted by AMA and Manatt Health.
  • Team Documentation Two webinars discuss how to improve efficiency of EHR documentation by using team members or other resources to assist the clinician.
  • Telehealth and Team-based Care James Jerzak, MD, physician lead of team-based care at Bellin Health in Green Bay, Wisconsin, talks about how to gather the support to leverage team-based care models in telehealth.
• Toolkits: How-to implementation guides
  • Annual Prescription Renewal 0.5 Credit CMELearn how working with pharmacies to synchronize prescription renewals can save time and improve medication adherence.
  • Pre-Visit Laboratory Testing 0.5 Credit CMEOrdering pre-visit lab tests allows the patient and physician to have a face-to-face conversation about the results, improving care and efficiency.
  • Pre-Visit Planning 0.5 Credit CMEUnderstand how pre-visit, team-based workflows can save time, improve care and strengthen satisfaction among the care team.
  • Team-Based Care Improve patient care and team engagement through collaboration and streamlined processes.
  • Advanced Rooming and Discharge 0.5 Credit CMEUnderstand how to involve team members in advanced rooming and discharge activities.
  • Daily Team Huddles 0.5 Credit CMEDevise a daily huddle structure and cadence that suits your practice and boosts productivity.
  • Team Meetings 0.5 Credit CMELearn how meetings can strengthen relationships and increase productivity, and find ways to ensure your team meetings are productive.
  • Patient Pre-Registration Use a script to help your patients with preregistration, saving you and your patients time while compiling a complete medical history.
  • Team Documentation 0.75 Credit CMELearn to improve efficiency with a team EHR documentation process.
  • Optimizing Space See how developing team stations and creating an engaging environment can improve efficiency and satisfaction for patients and providers.
  • Medication Management Adopt annual synchronized prescription renewals, and learn to save time by simplifying your prescribing and refill processes.
  • Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) Streamline workflow and involve nonphysician members of the care team to perform a thorough health evaluation.
  • Embedding Pharmacists Into the Practice Collaborate with pharmacists to optimize drug therapy and improve patient outcomes.
  • Team-Based Care in Resident Clinics Engage residents to lead in team-based care, improving quality and reducing health care costs.
  • Panel Management Use patient care registries to provide comprehensive preventive care.
  • Patient Care Registries Appropriate training and carefully designed practice workflows can help proactively manage chronic conditions.
  • Revenue Cycle Management Leverage a practice management system, easily verify insurance eligibility, and automate your practice's revenue cycle.
  • EHR Inbox Management 0.25 Credit CMEUnderstand how preventing unnecessary messages, using standard workflows and adding message filters can help your team tame your EHR inbox.
  • Telehealth and Team-Based Care Use team-based care workflows to improve patient care and team engagement during synchronous telehealth visits.
  • Patient Portal Optimization Empower patients as partners in health care while boosting your care team’s efficiency.
  • Electronic Health Record Optimization Strategies to help organizations maximize benefits and minimize burdens.
  • Getting Rid of Stupid Stuff (GROSS) Learn how to recognize unnecessary tasks and other “stupid stuff,” empowering clinicians to speak up and make improvements.
  • Simplified Outpatient Documentation and Coding Reduce workload with recent updates to E/M coding and team documentation.
• Success Stories: Real-world examples
  • Annual Prescription Renewals Could Save Hundreds of Hours Each Year Learn how Crusader Community Health launched a streamlined prescription management program for chronic medications that could save hundreds of hours of clinician time each year.
  • Effective Team-based Care Could Save 8 Hours of Free Time Per Week A family medicine clinic is using team-based care to see more patients, achieve higher quality scores, and get back eight to 10 hours of personal free time.
  • Read more Success Stories