This story is one of more than 20 health system profiles featured in the 2025 AMA Joy in Medicine® magazine (log into your AMA account to view).
Physicians enter medicine driven by a deep sense of purpose—to heal, to serve and to make a difference. Yet the increasing administrative burden, EHR requirements, and mounting patient loads have made it increasingly difficult for doctors to focus on their true calling. The result? Rising burnout, stress and emotional exhaustion.
Ochsner Health, a leading health system based in New Orleans and the Gulf South, has taken proactive steps to address these challenges by implementing cutting-edge technology, fostering teamwork and promoting well-being practices designed to lessen burnout and stress in medicine, and make practices more sustainable for physicians and patients alike.
Rethinking efficiency
For Jason Hill, MD, MMM, efficiency in medicine isn’t just about absolute time saved, it’s also about reducing burdens.
“Anyone who has done their taxes knows that five minutes can feel like an hour, and you can have time where hours fly by and you don't even realize it,” says Dr. Hill, an internist and the innovation officer at Ochsner Health. “It’s important to drive not just efficiency but to offload tasks that ultimately take clinicians away from patient care. We try to give them the cognitive freedom to be their absolute best.”
In looking for methods to build a more sustainable workplace for physicians, teams at Ochsner Health examined ways to cut down on the administrative burdens that ultimately cut back on the time doctors could focus on treating patients.
“Anybody rightfully wants to be in a state of flow, and that’s no different for physicians,” says Nigel Girgrah, MD, PhD, a transplant hepatologist and chief wellness officer at Ochsner Health. “It’s important to talk about purpose, but if we don’t address what leads to burnout, we’re not helping anyone.”
Leveraging technology
One of Ochsner Health’s most transformative solutions has been the implementation of ambient listening technology, an augmented intelligence (AI)-driven tool that transcribes notes in real time during patient appointments.
“Ambient listening is one of those few technologies that truly increases human connection. It allows the physician to be fully present in the conversation without the distraction of typing notes,” says Dr. Hill. “A lot of AI applications have come and gone and didn’t make much of a real impact.
“But I can’t go through a single meeting without someone walking up to me to say, ‘Thank you so much for doing this. It helps me feel like I don’t have to relive my day all over again as I type my notes,’” he adds. “It’s curative and beneficial for both doctor and patient to have that focused interaction without distraction.”
