Honor, an Antidote to Healthcare Worker Burnout
Daniel Wolcott
Healthcare | Strategy Development | Inspirational Leadership | Quality & Safety Improvement | Physician Engagement | Driving results with courage, authenticity, humility, and curiosity
The healthcare news media is filled with stories of burnout, quiet quitting, and early retirement.
Having led hospitals through the last three years, I cannot emphasis enough, the stress and strain that every healthcare worker has undergone, yet I am not discouraged.??I am not depressed. I believe there is one thing we can do to re-energize our healthcare workforce and attract the next generation healthcare worker into this great industry to serve future generations of friends and neighbors.
Who would a patient miss most if that person disappeared from the
care team?
We must see our people through the lens of honor.??We must honor those nearest the patient.??Our doctors, nurses, techs and support teams are not simply workers—they are people, they are professionals whose work impacts lives at the most vulnerable times. They care for one of the greatest gifts of all, life.
To help connect leaders in organizations I’ve led, to this honor, I’ve asked them, “who would a patient miss most if that person disappeared from the care team?”??We all know it would not be the CEO. It would be their nurse, their physician, their dietary aid, and their housekeeper.??So, who are the most important people in the hospital? Our front-line caregivers!
Why is honor such a powerful way to think about our healthcare people?
Merriam-Webster defines honor as the way “to regard or treat (someone) with admiration and respect.”
I believe that when we treat our people with admiration and respect burnout can be held at bay.??What would this look like?
Nurses—We stop seeing those in this profession as a monolithic group and start seeing them as individuals. They are not the “ED team” or the “ICU nurses.”??They are someone’s daughter, son, parent, partner, and friend.??They have fears, aspirations, and dreams.??Some are in school, are new to the workplace and concerned they aren’t ready for what they might face today.??Some are tired. Some are ready for a promotion and feel passed over. Some wish to be recognized. Some are hoping to get through the shift without being recognized. Some are excited from just having saved a life and know exactly why they chose this profession.??While others may wonder if they really did enough.
Physicians—There are few, if any, professions which our society asks so much.??When a doctor shows up for work, they hold our lives and those of our friends and neighbors in their hands.??And they shoulder the responsibility for all medical decisions. For the cognitive specialties—primary care, neurology, endocrinology, psychiatry, etc.— decisions about patients must be made without full information.??While tests, histories and exams give insight, judgment calls must be made for each patient and only time will determine if they got it right.??For the invasive specialties—surgeons, interventional cardiologist, etc.—the procedures they perform involve inflicting some level of harm in order to heal. Doctors carry an incredible and invisible weight of inflicting harm as they heal. It is a burden unlike most other professions. We must honor them!
Pharmacists, Lab Scientists, Imaging Techs and all other medical support roles—are people with specific duties essential to providing great care.??Imagine being responsible for stocking thousands of automatic dispensing cabinets making sure you get the exact right drug in the exact right drawer every single time.??Imagine being a housekeeper and knowing that you’re cleaning a room where a patient had a drug-resistant bug and you know it could be your grandmother occupying that room next.??Imagine being an MRI tech and knowing that if the screening processes aren’t perfect, you could kill a patient who has a magnetic clip in their brain.??A sentence like the ones above could be written about every single role in care delivery. Take a minute to think about other roles too. Each role carries the weight of help, healing and harm.
Every single role in a hospital or clinic or surgery center is important and every healthcare worker deserves our honor—admiration and respect!
Knowing?why?we must honor healthcare workers is just the first step. Knowing?how?to honor our people will change how we lead in three ways:
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#1. Truly SEE our people.
I hope you and every reader has someone who makes you feel seen.??There isn’t a better feeling in the world.??When you feel seen, you know you’re valued. You know you’re heard, supported, that someone has your back, someone will pull out all the stops to help you if you’re in trouble.??Our healthcare workers deserve that from their leaders.??After all, isn’t that what we ask them to do for our patients!??
And we can do it. Humans are good at seeing others.??If you’re a parent, you know what it’s like to see a new faces and have it melt your heart.??You are good at seeing people.??If you’re a healthcare leader, I’m inviting you to see—truly see—the people on your team.??It will transform them—and you!?
#2. Hurt with our people.
Here’s the hard part about leading in this way.??Once you truly see the people on your team, you will discover the why behind most challenging behaviors. You’ll see the overbearing doctor is compensating for the surgical error from 10 years ago that killed a patient.??The abrupt nurse is going through a personal crisis at home. The angry tech is experiencing depression. The persnickety pharmacist knows what it feels like to have harmed a patient due to a medication error.??As a healthcare leader, when you truly see people, you may see more than you can absorb and process day-in-and-day out.??So, what can you do?
Traditionally, we have expected leaders to bottle it up, make sure the shifts are filled, the paperwork is done, and the productivity targets are met. That busy-ness tunes out the hurt.??This, however, is not our natural state. This is not why we went into healthcare. We can share the hurt, see it and acknowledge it so that we can support each other through it. Pushing away the hurt will put you in a state of denial that can slowly lead to burnout.
#3. Tell the truth.
The truth will set us all free. And here is the truth. Healthcare is about life. Life is complex and imperfect.??Errors happen, divorce, depression, suicide, premature death, and all the other horrors of life continue.??Our jobs as healthcare leaders isn’t to solve every problem. Our job is to help others and give each other the best possible healthcare.??This takes energy and is imperfect, but when we are seen and valued nearly always, it will give us energy to do what needs to be done, to help, to step up, to give all that is needed to make every healthcare workplace truly magical.
Some leaders will say, “I’ve tried that, and it only led to my own burnout.” Or “That may work in the short-term, but once they realize it’s just a sham, it won’t last.”??It is easy and even natural to reject a new or different way of thinking and leading. It does require some effort to shift, but telling the truth is another form of giving to and honoring our people.??Leading in the truth can align your leadership to what healthcare is about.??Leading in this truth, can bring out more trust in how we work, and make our lives—and the lives of our patients—better!
This means we engage with all healthcare workers in a way that honors how deeply they care and can help solve problems we face.??We talk with them about quality, safety (patient and employee), processes, finances, schedules, strategy, growth, revenue, regulations, technology, and competition.??We stop telling them what do to through endless rounds of computer-based learning modules, followed by hollow templated memos and policies from distant titled leaders, couched in fancy buzzwords from our most recent consulting engagements.??We go to where they are, listen to their thoughts, communicate relentlessly, authentically, and simply. And we repeat this listening and communicating again and again and again.
When we do this and keep doing it day-in-and-day-out, our people will not need to be told they are seen, heard, and valued. They will be seen, heard, and valued.??We can’t fix it all right now, but we can see our healthcare workers, feel with them, and tell the truth.??The outcome can bring forward the best version of ourselves to make a difference to our patients and their families, because this is why we are in this field.?
Burnout can be kept at bay when we truly honor all in healthcare!
Director of Imaging Services at Aylo Health
1 年So glad you shared this article. It’s wonderful to see that you mention everyone on the healthcare team no matter which job they perform and how all team members can be affected. Honoring and making team members feel valued is critical. True healthcare workers do not do it for a pat on the back, but rather because it’s a calling. However, everyone like an “ata boy “ sometimes. This way of thinking is what makes you an incredible leader Daniel and I am so blessed to have had the opportunity to work with and learn from you. I will be sharing this with my staff and hope other leaders will do the same. Thank you again for sharing!
Senior Project Manager, Supply Chain Management at AdventHealth
1 年Well said. Thank you for writing this. On another note, your comment that your daughter is a nurse makes me wonder where the years have gone. Our best to you and your family.
Experienced, skilled , adventurous RN pursuing quality of life. New adventure @ AH.
1 年As a nurse myself, I want to comment about this. Our job is hard, yours too. We have bad days, you too. This is true for every worker. Honestly, I don’t think nurses care that much about a pat in the back from their leaders and their professional talk. Neither do we care for all the mottos leaders come up with almost every year. I personally hate the ??you are made for more??, because I want a leader to clarify what is more. So far, more is always all kind of things, except money. I heard a leader say that CNA don’t have skills and I wanted to answer that if I needed assistance, I would call any of theses CNA without skills than the leader talking. So much for seeing people… Bottom line, whatever the philosophy we can use to help us wake up every morning to go to work, we all work for a pay check. I am s?re that your paycheck helps you wake up every morning, give you energy to find motivation for you and others. So one good way to honor your people - if not the best !- would be to help them have a motivational paycheck. This will help them connect with their leaders! If you don’t believe me, dare to try it. You will see the miracles and how we, in return can see you leaders and honor you. With Love