Technostress: Main Causes And Possible Solutions

Revising the history of human-data relations, you will observe exponential growth in data dependency in the last few years. Since the 1980s, the digital collection rate has doubled approximately every 40 months, which led to the creation of a new separate scientific discipline – Big Data.

The estimated volume of global health data growth in digits is imposing; for instance, the article from Dr. Schwendicke and Dr. Crois proposes the following numbers:

And yes, this data frenzy is necessary for the healthcare industry – the more information we have – the more questions we can answer – and the more problems we can solve more effectively and faster during treatment. This simple equation is a key to all existing technological advancements in medicine in general and dentistry in particular.

The price of efficiency – technostress

We have various hardware and software elements to collect and process this massive amount of information, and we faced some complications here. The abundance of technology in clinics puts additional emotional pressure on dentists – so-called technostress.

Recently, this topic has gained popularity, and complex research has appeared. For instance, a paper from a group of Goethe University scientists focused on the most widespread and demanded digital technology in modern dentistry, including digital X-rays. CAD/CAM systems, Electronic Medical Records systems, etc., and their impact on dentists’ psychological well-being. 

Most researchers and practitioners agree about the crucial role of these tools in providing high-quality health results and automating administrative processes – today, these technologies are indispensable. Thus, it's important to highlight the importance of caring for dentists' mental health during work with such technologies.

Problematics: The main factors of technological stress

To learn how experienced dentists handle digital tools, researchers invited 368 practitioners (78% have over a decade of clinical experience). They provided participants with appropriate questionnaires about experiencing technostress during work. As it turned out, its overall level among the clinicians was a bit higher than the middle level (3.7, where 1 – is a lack of technostress and 5 – is its higher form).

Still, these three points are just the tip of the iceberg, and the problem is much more complex than at first glance. 

Real practice cases

Besides the survey terminology, we can highlight a list of particular issues we may commonly face during dental practice as specialists:

• Lack of integration between different software and unified data repositories may lead to technical errors and inconsistency of data.
• Need for data duplication due to the existence of multiple processing applications such as CAD/CAM software, digital X-rays, radiographs, etc.)
• Lack of stable communication environment between all stakeholders of dental practice – dentists, patients, manufacturers, etc. 

Another important stress-causing factor is regular expenses for upgrades, software maintenance, and the purchase of new tools. Nowadays, technological breakthroughs in digital innovation may happen any day, and some such inventions may be crucial to your facility. 

However, you should invest not only your money but also dozens of hours to adopt technology properly – Decision Dentistry journal highlights that advanced technology users in dentistry spend many more hours on professional activities. Still, this is a necessary sacrifice in the career matter – the more advanced technology user you are, the more clients you have – and the more money you earn.

Solutions: What to do with it?

The research identifies three main technostress dimensions: tech overload, techno-complexity, and techno-uncertainty –– all these factors lead to emotional exhaustion and, subsequently, to burnout. Participated dentists provided a list of possible preventive measures that can decrease stress levels during work:

Practical implementations: EMR example

Considering the mentioned preventive measures, we can specify particular features that should have demanded clinic management software. Thus, it’s better to choose a particular sample of a digital tool to explain these characteristics.

For instance, the EMR system from the Remedico.app demonstrates a list of technical features related to technostress-reducing factors. Let’s make their quick overview:

1. Web-based software

Web-based solutions (they are often subscription-based) are always categorized by increased accessibility, high data security level, and lower prices compared to locally-based alternatives. They can be run on almost every device and grant a good level of privacy. Additionally, they are rapidly release updates and patches for the existing tools.  

2. User-friendly interface 

Such software, as in the Remedico example, has an intuitive interface that contains simple graphical elements and smart textual tools that prompt users about app functionality.

For instance, when you need to create a medical record about tooth defects in the treatment interface, you intuitively press on the tooth image, and then the smart search does the rest of the work. 

3. Automatization of the communication

Conversations with clients during registration in clinics, reminders about visits, or scheduling/cancelation of appointments are always time-consuming tasks. And they may be turned into a couple of minutes with communication software that can automatically massage your patients.

To streamline these functions, Remedico, for instance, categorized patients into four addressee groups with a few types of message templates in each – a few clicks and a reminder is ready.

4. Reminders and stakeholders' cooperation

Since techno-overload is one of the crucial stress-causing factors, it’s important to reduce the amount of software needed to the minimum as much as possible. Thus, it’s important to have an environment where administrative staff and doctors can communicate, exchange files, and work with scheduling.

5. Integrated tools

One of the important factors in double-documentation problem resolution – is the integration of different digital solutions in one ecosystem. In a Remedico example, the company implemented VR/AR presentation software into their web-based application.

Thus, you can start your presentation session directly from the app interface without involving third-party tools and use STL files for demonstration from the app storage. 

Let's summarize

Technostress is a crucial factor that affects dentists' well-being and may negatively impact their work. It is mainly caused by tech overload, tech uncertainty, and work with double-documentation.

Still, some modern digital technology providers, being aware of this problem, are optimizing their software, equipping it with crucial features for comfortable software/hardware use, including:

• Intuitive interface
• Regular training
• IT services utilization

Additionally, when choosing the most optimizing digital tool, you should pay attention to its accessibility level (usually, web-based software is preferable in that case), integration of additional tools, and comfortable communication environment.