Westfields Primary Clinic Team Challenge: Clinician Time Spent in In-Basket

At Westfields Primary Care Clinic, the challenge was clinician frustration around too much time in their In-Basket in the electronic record, particularly outside of scheduled hours. Concerns were identified regarding the Right Person, Right Message, and Right Work. After identifying barriers such as finding objective data, abbreviated staff onboarding during COVID, and lack of clear team communication, a best-practice approach was implemented. As a result of this quality improvement project, over 40% improvement in self-reported clinician satisfaction occurred. Other benefits were 35% reduced pajama time (average 41 minutes to 26.5 minutes), decreased hourly In-Basket outside of scheduled hours, increased interdepartmental communication, and increase in clinician engagement.