Physician burnout: Signs and solutions
From awareness to advocacy, here’s what you need to know to prevent burnout from taking hold.
Professional societies and medical boards. Reporting requirements by medical boards tend to stigmatize those seeking professional assistance. But that could change if all of us—through our participation in these organizations—pursue change.
Specifically, organizations and related societies could assist with better guidance and policy adjustment (see “Resources”). State medical boards could, for example, increase education of, and outreach to, physicians about mental health issues, while maintaining confidentiality.25 Medical organizations could regularly survey their membership to identify burnout early and identify personal, social, and institutional shortcomings that contribute to physician burnout. In addition, hospital quality improvement committees that monitor health care delivery appropriateness could take steps toward change as well.
SIDEBAR
Resources to help combat burnout
- National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Clinician Well- Being and Resilience: https://nam.edu/initiatives/clinician-resilience-and-well-being/
- The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare: https://www.theschwartzcenter.org
- NEJM Catalyst: https://catalyst.nejm.org/posts?q=burnout
- The American Medical Association, Joy in Medicine: https://www.ama-assn.org/search?search=joy+in+medicine
- Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: https://www.ahrq.gov/prevention/clinician/ahrq-works/burnout/index.html
- Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Tools and Resources for Resident and Faculty Member Well-Being: https://www.acgme.org/What-We-Do/Initiatives/Physician-Well-Being/Resources
The American Medical Association (AMA) just recently announced that they are launching a new effort to fight the causes of physician burnout. The AMA’s Practice Transformation Inititative26 seeks to fill the knowledge gaps regarding effective interventions to reduce burnout. AMA’s leadership indicates that the initiative will focus on “improving joy in medicine by using validated assessment tools to measure burnout; field-testing interventions that are designed to improve workflows, applying practice science research methodology to evaluate impact, and sharing best practices within an AMA-facilitated learning community.”26
Stanford’s example. Stanford University instituted a ‘time bank’ program, to help their academic medical faculty balance work and life and reduce stress. They essentially offer services, such as home food delivery and house cleaning, in return for hours spent in the clinic.27
Reorganizing and reprioritizing. Prioritizing physician wellness as a quality indicator and instituting a committee to advocate for wellness can help attenuate burnout.28,29 Specific measures include minimizing rushed, overloaded scheduling and allowing more clinical contact time with patients. Using nursing and office staff to streamline workflow is also helpful.29 The University of Colorado’s “Ambulatory Process Excellence Model” strives to assist doctors by increasing the medical assistant-to-clinician ratio, yielding better productivity.23 Medical assistants are increasingly handling tasks such as data entry, medication reconciliation, and preventive care, to allow physicians more time to focus on medical decision-making.23
Continue to: The role of the EHR
