The Second Symphony: How Technology Disrupted the Heart of Healthcare

“They took the credit for your second symphony/ Rewritten by machine and new technology.”

—The Buggles

Video Killed The radio Star

In 1979, The Buggles released a synth-pop hit with a prophetic warning: "Video Killed the Radio Star." It marked the cultural shift from the intimate, disembodied voice of radio to the highly produced, image-obsessed world of video. But, it wasn't just about music; it was about what happens when innovation replaces authenticity. Today, in modern American healthcare, we’re seeing a similar story unfold.

The radio star in medicine was the personal, relational provider. Your small-town doctor who knew your name and your story. The "video" era arrived with electronic medical records (EMRs), patient portals, algorithms, and telehealth platforms. It promised efficiency, access, and precision. But in many ways, it’s crowded out the voice… the conversation, connection, and trust that form the heart of healing.

From Human to Interface: The Changing Landscape of Care

Where doctors once scribbled in charts and looked patients in the eye, they now juggle dual monitors, respond to portal messages, and manage performance dashboards. Physicians report spending only 27% of their time on direct patient care, with over two-thirds of their workdays devoted to desk tasks, documentation, and inbox management (Sinsky et al., 2016). The same study found that doctors spend nearly two additional hours on the EHR after clinic hours; time often dubbed "pajama time."

Technology isn’t the enemy. EMRs have improved legibility and information access. Portals have made test results and communication more accessible. But they’ve also added new burdens. Between 2020 and 2021, portal messages increased by 157% (Northwestern Medicine, 2022), leaving doctors scrambling to keep up. One physician noted, "I cannot give up several hours of my personal time every night to clear out my inbox" (American Medical Association, 2023).

Patients feel this shift, too. While technology offers convenience, it also adds complexity. Navigating multiple platforms, remembering logins, interpreting lab results without guidance; these tasks can overwhelm even the tech-savvy. The digital tools meant to empower patients often leave them feeling disoriented, especially when they don't know if anyone is truly listening.

Face-to-face interactions have been replaced with screen-mediated conversations. Studies show that high computer use during visits correlates with significantly lower patient satisfaction (Tai-Seale et al., 2017). Eye contact and body language (those subtle cues of care) are often sacrificed for data entry. Many patients walk away asking, "Did my doctor even hear me?"

Meanwhile, care has become fragmented. Patients may see one provider through a video visit, another through a walk-in clinic, and receive lab updates via a third-party portal. Continuity of care, once the cornerstone of trust, is often lost in a sea of convenience. The result: more access, less connection.

A Growing Emotional Toll on Providers

For providers, this shift has brought both efficiency and emotional exhaustion. More than 60% of physicians report at least one symptom of burnout (Shanafelt et al., 2022). But some experts argue this isn’t just burnout; it’s moral injury. Physicians feel caught between their duty to patients and the demands of billing, metrics, and inboxes (Talbot & Dean, 2018).

Doctors enter medicine to heal, to listen, to be present. But many now spend their days checking boxes, coding visits, and attending to electronic demands. As Talbot and Dean write, it’s not just exhaustion. It is the emotional wound of being unable to practice the way one believes is right. Over time, this leads to disengagement, despair, and even physician suicide at rates twice that of the general population (Gold et al., 2013).

This environment has turned many clinicians into reluctant clerks of the system. They’re balancing the needs of their patients with the crushing demands of documentation, prior authorizations, inboxes, and productivity metrics. Some spend their evenings finishing charts, others dread checking messages that pile up while they sleep. The tools meant to streamline care now consume it.

What We're Losing When the Voice Fades

When the "voice" fades in medicine, we lose more than nostalgia. We lose the relational glue that binds patients and providers together. Empathy, an irreplaceable element of care, can’t be charted, but its absence is felt deeply. A glance missed, a rushed reply, a checklist completed without context: these small moments chip away at the trust that patients depend on.

We also lose nuance. Drop-down menus and symptom checkers can’t capture uncertainty, emotion, or fear. A patient's tone, their hesitations, their metaphorical descriptions… These often hold diagnostic gold. In a system driven by efficiency, those subtleties risk being flattened or ignored. Vulnerable patients (e.g., those without digital literacy, stable internet, or confidence navigating systems) may be left behind. Convenience for some becomes confusion for others. Without intentional support, digital health tools risk reinforcing disparities. Providers lose, too. They lose the joy that brought them to medicine—the deep satisfaction of knowing a patient well, catching a hidden clue, holding space for grief. The art of medicine erodes when clinicians are forced to prioritize data over dialogue.

Reclaiming the Voice: A Path Forward

We don’t need to abandon technology. We need to rehumanize it. Technology should serve the relationship, not replace it. Ambient AI can reduce documentation burden. Medical scribes and team-based workflows can free up time for actual listening. Patient portals can be redesigned with empathy in mind; they can be designed and offer guidance, translation, and human backup (P.S.- this is something we have put into practice at Storyline).

Health systems can set clear expectations for digital communication, so clinicians aren’t buried in 24/7 inboxes. Communication training, both for in-person and virtual settings, should be a cornerstone of medical education. Telehealth, if done thoughtfully, can include space for warmth, presence, and connection.

Above all, we must remember that care is not a transaction. It is a relationship. Progress should not come at the cost of presence. The goal isn’t to rewind to the past. It’s to make room for the radio star in the video age—to let the human voice be heard alongside the algorithm. Connection and innovation aren’t opposites. They’re partners.

References

American Medical Association. (2023). What’s adding to doctor burnout? Check your patient portal inbox. Retrieved from https://www.ama-assn.org

Gold, K. J., Sen, A., & Schwenk, T. L. (2013). Details on suicide among US physicians: data from the National Violent Death Reporting System. General Hospital Psychiatry, 35(1), 45-49.

Northwestern Medicine. (2022). Patient messages surge: The new challenge for clinicians. Retrieved from https://news.nm.org

Shanafelt, T. D., West, C. P., Dyrbye, L. N., & Sinsky, C. A. (2022). Changes in burnout and satisfaction with work-life integration in physicians and the general US working population between 2011 and 2020. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 97(3), 491-506.

Sinsky, C., Colligan, L., Li, L., Prgomet, M., Reynolds, S., Goeders, L., ... & Blike, G. (2016). Allocation of physician time in ambulatory practice: a time and motion study in 4 specialties. Annals of Internal Medicine, 165(11), 753-760.

Tai-Seale, M., Olson, C. W., Li, J., Chan, A. S., Morikawa, C., Durbin, M., ... & Luft, H. S. (2017). Electronic health record logs indicate that physicians split time evenly between seeing patients and desktop medicine. Health Affairs, 36(4), 655-662.

Talbot, S. G., & Dean, W. (2018). Physicians aren’t ‘burning out.’ They’re suffering from moral injury. STAT News. Retrieved from https://www.statnews.com