UCSF’s DoC-IT Launches New Center to Advance Digital Physician Practice Transformation (ADAPT)

The new center will foster a collaborative community of researchers and leaders focused on advancing the understanding of how physicians’ interactions with technology shape practice patterns and patient experiences.

As the practice of clinical medicine has dramatically evolved over recent decades, driven by shifts in the healthcare environment and the adoption of new technologies, physicians are facing unprecedented levels of burnout and intentions to leave the workforce. This crisis underscores the urgent need for healthcare leaders to understand the key factors driving physician dissatisfaction and identify solutions that improve both physician well-being and care delivery.

Particularly, there is a need for evidence about how technology is reshaping medical practice, given that health information technology (IT) has the potential to both contribute to physician burnout and be part of the solution to alleviate it. To address these questions and issues, the UCSF Division of Clinical Informatics and Digital Transformation (DoC-IT) has launched the new UCSF Center to Advance Digital Physician Practice Transformation (ADAPT).

ADAPT will convene researchers and health system leaders to advance studies at the intersection of technology and physician work. The center’s initial efforts will focus on examining how physicians’ interactions with cutting-edge tools impact their practice patterns and patient experiences. Through this focus, the center aims to drive innovative solutions and enhance healthcare delivery.

Lisa Rotenstein, MD, MBA, assistant professor in DoC-IT and medical director of ambulatory quality and safety at UCSF Health, has been named the inaugural director for the center. Under her visionary leadership, the new center will serve as a hub for developing and executing collaborative studies. ADAPT also will offer opportunities for partnership and mentorship on pertinent research, support collaborative funding applications, and build a vibrant community dedicated to enhancing physician practice and experiences.

The focal point of the center will be a generous $1 million grant from The Physicians Foundation, which focuses on advancing physician experience and practice excellence. Since 2023, Dr. Rotenstein has led this grant with David Bates, MD, MSc, chief of the division of general medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and this collaboration will continue with the launch of ADAPT.

Some of ADAPT’s initial work will examine the impact of AI documentation technologies on physician burnout and physicians’ time expenditure, the prevalence and consequences of physicians’ reductions in clinical effort, how physician-patient interactions via the patient portal differ by patient characteristics, and the impact of several EHR optimization interventions on physician experience, quality of care, and EHR time.

Dr. Rotenstein, a primary care physician, researcher, and healthcare leader, specializes in ambulatory care delivery, physician well-being, gender issues in medicine, and the impact of electronic health records on medical practice around these topics. Her research has been widely published, such as her work on physician and trainee mental health – published in JAMA, JAMA Health Forum, and the Journal of General Internal Medicine – has fostered increased awareness of the epidemic of depression and burnout in medical students and physicians and catalyzed action to address this public health burden. Her research on the electronic health record (EHR), published in JAMA Internal Medicine, JAMA Network Open, and JAMIA, have deepened the field’s understanding of the role of the EHR in physician experience.

Among her many achievements, Dr. Rotenstein has been named a 2022 Modern Healthcare Top 25 Emerging Leader, the 2022 New England Region SGIM Investigator of the Year, and a 2024 member of the New Voices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

“ADAPT is being launched at a critical time in the evolution of technologies to advance varied aspects of care delivery,” said Julia Adler-Milstein, chief of DoC-IT. “We need rigorous evidence of their impact with a particular focus on the physician experience. Lisa is a uniquely qualified leader for ADAPT as she is a researcher who deeply understands health system operations as well as the frontline physician experience.”

To learn more about ADAPT, visit our website.