System-level changes needed to reduce burnout among physicians
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Key takeaways:
- Researchers identified seven key themes across health care literature to address burnout.
- Health care systems should provide physicians with the resources to do their job and minimize nonclinical related tasks.
While numerous individual level interventions have been recommended to address burnout among physicians, research has shown that system-level changes also need to be made to reduce burnout.
“We’ve discovered through a lot of research over the past decades outside of orthopedic surgery that it’s the system that you work in [that can increase burnout] and how to improve that system is going to be the number one driving force of whether or not you’re going to be protected from burnout,” Alfred Atanda Jr., MD, pediatric orthopedic surgeon and director of clinician well-being at Nemours Children’s Health in Wilmington, Delaware, told Healio. “There’s not enough yoga and meditation and mindfulness I can do in a day that’s going to let me thrive and grow and flourish in an inefficient, chaotic health care system full of barriers to my own well-being.”
To address system-level contributions to burnout, Atanda and colleagues used evidence-based organizational strategies and approaches suggested by national medical associations and recommendations outlined in landmark guidelines on burnout to identify key themes to mitigate burnout.
Researchers found seven key themes across health care literature to address burnout. Based on these themes, researchers recommended that health care systems do the following:
- recognize the presence of burnout and invest in strategies to measure and address it;
- harness leadership support and commitment;
- establish and sustain a culture of wellness and support;
- promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace;
- secure access to mental health care and promote individual resilience;
- reduce workplace inefficiencies; and
- enhance orthopedic surgeons’ autonomy and control.
Atanda noted health care systems should provide physicians with the resources to do their jobs, remove barriers and minimize nonclinical-related tasks and administrator burden and workload.
“In a nutshell, [it is] setting people up for success so that when they go to work every day, they have what they need and they’re doing the appropriate work that’s of meaning and of value to them,” Atanda said. “If you implement systems that promote that message and theme, that’s what’s going to be the number one thing that’s going to promote the well-being of the people that are doing the front-line care.”
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