Virtual assistants can help improve physician wellbeing, workload

Key takeaways:

• Virtual assistants can offer many benefits to physicians, such as improved workload and wellbeing.
• When onboarding a virtual assistant, it is important to systemize the process.

KOLOA, Hawaii — Virtual assistants can offer several benefits to ophthalmic practices if they are integrated with care, according to a speaker.

“I think the reason many of us are finding ourselves burnt out is because sometimes we don’t have the time to pursue our outside interests or delve deeper into our interests in ophthalmology because we’re doing administrative tasks,” Rupa Wong, MD, said at Hawaiian Eye 2025. “That is where using a virtual assistant (VA) is extremely helpful: Improving our wellbeing.”

Physicians may employ VAs for a number of reasons, including difficulties finding or hiring clinical staff. Common misconceptions about VAs include the belief that they are not useful in clinical settings and that VAs are trained to the practice’s specific needs by default, Wong said. When integrating VAs into a practice, Wong suggested employing three key concepts: Delegate, automate and systemize onboarding.

In regard to delegating, it is advisable to automate routine practice tasks and develop systems to help with the onboarding process of the VA, Wong said. It is also beneficial to identify the needs of your practice, which can be achieved by creating a time audit for staff, identifying tasks that can be handled outside of the office and then matching the VA’s tasks to their area of expertise.

During the automation phase, Wong explained, it is useful to utilize technology to address repetitive processes to help curb the risk for human error. Electronic health record systems and automated schedulers can be useful in this area and can free up VAs to focus on more complicated tasks.

Systemizing your standard operating procedures is also useful, Wong said, and checklists or diagrams can be used to help streamline work. Finally, when onboarding a VA, it is important to provide detailed training materials and assign a mentor to offer guidance at the beginning of the VA’s employment. Additionally, regular check-ins during the onboarding process can be helpful for monitoring the VA’s advancement.

“Phone calls, appointment scheduling, electronic prescribing, referrals, driver’s license letters, prepping charts, verifying insurance and follow-up text messages are just a small bit of the things I have delegated to our virtual scribes and virtual receptionist,” Wong said. “But, that’s not to say that you have to delegate every single thing. If you can automate and leverage technology to do something, do that.”

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Sources/Disclosures

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Source:

Wong R. Utilization of virtual assistants in practice to improve physician well-being. Presented at: Hawaiian Eye 2025; Jan. 18-24, 2025; Koloa, Hawaii.

Disclosures:
Wong reports no relevant financial disclosures.

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