Reduce Clinician Burnout: The Case for Fewer Apps in Healthcare

Defining Workflow Optimization for Healthcare

A few years ago, workflow optimization meant speeding up individual tasks. Now, leaders need to ensure that systems are well connected across the care continuum.

“The conversation has shifted from ‘How do we do this task faster?’ to ‘How do we eliminate the task entirely or make it invisible to the clinician?’” says Will Mobley, healthcare strategic account manager at Honeywell.  

Health systems are pursuing full interoperability across the entire care journey, between caregivers, imaging modalities and locations. This means “aiming at increased clinician and patient satisfaction, even improved clinical outcomes,” Drost says.

The Importance of Application Rationalization for Health Systems

“Application rationalization is the structured, data-driven review of that portfolio, deciding what to retire, consolidate and keep,” says Tamara Elias, vice president of healthcare and life sciences industry go-to-market at ServiceNow. “Done well, it starts with usage data, so the functionality clinicians actually rely on gets preserved.”

A 2025 CHIME survey found that 76% of CIOs call application rationalization critical, yet only 1 in 5 has a program in place.

Elias cites Trinity Health, a not-for-profit health system operating in 22 states, which retired more than 740 redundant systems and is projecting over $100 million in long-term savings. Emplify Health, a nonprofit healthcare network in the upper Midwest, also eliminated 30-plus applications and cut $3 million in direct costs.

ServiceNow’s AI Platform reduces app overlaps by connecting what already exists across biomed, facilities, IT and clinical operations onto a shared workflow layer. Instead of asking clinicians to navigate multiple applications, requests can be routed behind the scenes to the appropriate team or system, Elias says.

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Optimization as a Clinician Retention Strategy

Some health systems have used apps to fill in for system gaps and staff shortages. Between desk work and EHRs, prior authorization and other administrative duties, clinicians report that they are spending too much time on screens instead of with patients, says Elias. 

“Add in clinicians toggling between four to six systems for a single patient transition, and the real pain point comes into view: the constant switching between systems that were never built to talk to each other. That’s where burnout lives,” Elias adds.

Mobley says that doctor burnout and nurse shortages make workflow optimization a retention strategy as well as an efficiency strategy. A JAMA quality improvement study found ambulatory burnout dropped from 51.9% to 38.8% within 30 days of ambient AI adoption.

Honeywell’s voice-enabled workflow technologies can capture conversations and populate notes in the EHR.

“It’s keeping clinicians in the healthcare space because now they’re doing less manual documentation and can actually spend more time with their patients,” Mobley says.

Steps Toward Optimization and App Reduction

In the next five years, the focus on simplifying workflows should emphasize consolidating technology where appropriate and using AI to remove administrative burden so clinicians can spend more time caring for patients, Drost says.

Successful application rationalization also requires governance. Rather than allowing departments to purchase point solutions independently, health systems are increasingly looking for enterprisewide strategies that reduce duplication and improve interoperability.

“Governance needs to be in place from day one, along with an AI steering committee and clinical safety review, while application rationalization becomes an ongoing discipline with a repeatable model for retiring and consolidating systems,” Elias says.

This requires change management, not just software implementation, and input from clinicians and people working on the front lines.

“Workflows designed without frontline input often fail because they do not reflect real-world practice,” Drost says.

Mobley suggests a device and data capture strategy that scales across the network, not just one site, and a clear plan for consolidating the number of touchpoints a clinician has to interact with.

“The health systems that get this right treat workflow optimization as a continuous program, not a one-time rollout,” Mobley says.