As Physician and Nurse Burnout Escalates, 5 Key Takeaways Can Drive Successful Solutions

What’s Trending: New Physician Survey Highlights Importance of Trust and Transparency to Achieve Change

Most provider organizations are attempting to address physician and nurse burnout. Yet while some organizations are retaining their people amid understaffing and overwhelming influxes of patients, others are hemorrhaging talent. Why?

According to Dan Shapiro, PhD , Director of the Chartis Center for Burnout Solutions , there isn’t one simple question to ask to ensure everyone is assessing and addressing the right problems in the right way.

“Different subpopulations of healthcare workers need and want different things. So, there isn’t a simple, ‘oh, it’s the boss,’ or, ‘it’s your relationship with your boss,’ or, ‘oh, you’re not getting good enough communication from leadership.’ There isn’t a simple one or a few questions that matches everything that everybody needs,” says Shapiro.

To truly get to the bottom of the underlying issues affecting the healthcare workforce today, leaders will need to take a much more systematic approach and build trust to move from knowledge to action.

Why It Matters:?

The U.S. faces a projected shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). As burnout continues to exacerbate physician and nursing shortages, the impacts for healthcare organizations and patients continue to grow—including a lack of patient access to basic care and increased labor costs due to continued reliance on temporary staff.

Yet while physician and nursing shortages are well documented, solutions to stabilize and strengthen the healthcare workforce can be elusive.

“The issue we run into the most is that most organizations are not set up to address the wellbeing of their people,” Shapiro said in a new podcast from our colleagues at Jarrard, Inc. “They’ve been set up to set that aside to Human Resources or some other place pre-pandemic, so you end up without enough alignment. We have an overwhelming pressure on the healthcare workforce, and we need aligned leaders with clear roles and the resources to address these issues.”

At the same time, physicians’ trust in their organization’s executive leadership is weak.

Only 50% of physicians trust that their organization’s leaders are honest and transparent, according to a newly released physician survey from Jarrard. In addition, barely half (53%) say they have a lot or great deal of trust that leaders are making good decisions for patients and the organization.

As the Jarrard report notes, “Change takes trust. When leaders take meaningful action, they earn trust. Which allows for more action.” Leaders must take the first step in this virtuous cycle—and it starts with knowing where physicians and nurses in their organization stand today.

Failing to address burnout and gain trust will mean higher turnover, higher costs, and lower patient satisfaction.

What’s Next?

Healthcare organizations that make a focused effort to address burnout and close the trust gap for physicians and nurses will build loyalty among their workforce, improve and sustain engagement, and ultimately better support patient care.

Shapiro and our Jarrard colleagues outlined 5 key takeaways for healthcare leaders to make essential organizational changes:

1. Different roles require different solutions. Don’t overlook the unique challenges and needs within different subpopulations of your workforce. More than 1 in 5 physicians think their organization’s leadership isn’t adequately supporting them and other clinical staff, according to the Jarrard physician survey.

“If you’re an executive trying to support folks in your organization, how do you know what action to take?” says Kevin Kearns, PsyD , Vice President at Jarrard. ”You need to have an ongoing awareness of your people.”

That’s why organizations need a systematic approach to measurement. It needs to be a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods that measure the major stressors across their workforce. And it needs to be practice-specific to identify the greatest needs and solutions for each subpopulation.

2. Utilize data to develop solutions. Ground your actions in evidence so you can implement a systematic approach tailored to your organization.

“If you talk to a cardiac surgeon, the thing that’s most important to them is not the same as if you talk to an internist,” says Shapiro. “Healthcare organizations need to ensure that the full spectrum of their employees’ needs are appropriately met if they are going to meaningfully address burnout and increase engagement.”

Practice-specific data can help you identify and pursue achievable interventions that are tailored to your clinicians’ needs and your organization’s resources.

3. Start now, before it’s too late. Organizations that aren’t engaging their people when times are tough will see their problems exacerbated in the long run. Physicians who don’t trust their leaders may be primed for poaching if an opportunity they perceive as better comes along. And those who don’t trust that good decisions are being made are less likely to engage in growing the organization through patient referrals, retention, and acquisition.

Organizations need to build specific, action-oriented retention and engagement plans for clinicians in every role and at every stage of their career. They also need to build the communications materials and channels to deliver those plans.

“Show [nurses and physicians] that their priorities and mission are the same as yours,” says David C. Pate, MD, JD , Of Counsel with Jarrard. “Show it by talking about clinical quality. About patient experience. About how the organization’s resources are being used to further its mission—while acknowledging how those financial and operational decisions affect [your clinicians].”

4. It doesn’t stop with front-line staff and managers. Engagement efforts must extend to the Human Resources and leadership teams to ensure that everyone can thrive.

“It’s very tempting for healthcare leaders to try and trim central services in IT and Human Resources. But this is the exact wrong time to do it,” says Shapiro. “Investing in great recruiting and in helping those managers stay and be effective is actually going to pay dividends over the long term.”

Healthcare organizations that invest in all their people will be better equipped to weather the current challenges and emerge as employers of choice.

5. Close the trust gap. Leaders must be more transparent to gain trust—and ultimately buy-in and engagement for critical initiatives—from their healthcare workforce.

Start by assessing your workforce to quantify their level of trust in your institution and its leaders. Use this data to identify where gaps in trust, engagement, and resources exist. Then, report back on the findings so your physicians and nurses know they’ve been heard. Be sure to communicate priorities, performance, and plans in real time. And give regular updates, especially when there are bumps in the road.

“You gain credibility and trust by being open and honest, both about successes … and failures,” says Pate. He also recommends making communications two-way for the best results. “Provide opportunities for physicians to ask questions and offer feedback.”

Critical to keep in mind is that applying these takeaways isn’t a one-time solution, nor is it one size fits all. “It’s not like you can check the box and be done,” says Kearns. “It’s an ongoing holistic view that makes sure that things are lined up and you’re able to understand. It’s not just, ‘What are the best practices?’ but, ‘What are effective, successful practices for your organization?’”

To retain physicians, drive transformative change, and build a stronger provider network, healthcare leaders must invest the time and energy into engaging with their workforce. It’ll take a systematic approach to truly understand the work ahead, but with it, healthcare leaders can ensure they’re taking the necessary steps to move from burnout toward healthy engagement.

Listen to the full podcast on burnout, leadership, and organization.?

ABOUT CHARTIS??

Chartis is a comprehensive healthcare advisory firm dedicated to helping clients build a healthier world. We work across the healthcare continuum with more than 600 clients annually, including providers, payers, health services organizations, technology and retail companies, and investors. Through times of change, challenge, and opportunity, we advise the industry on how to navigate disruption, pursue growth, achieve financial sustainability, unleash technology, improve care models and operations, enhance clinical quality and safety, and advance health equity. The teams we convene bring deep industry expertise and industry-leading innovation, enabling clients to achieve transformational results and create positive societal impact. Learn more .?

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