The toll from burnout continues to be a problem for healthcare leaders, with rates above 50% in some specialties. Every measure by which quality is accessed worsens with burnout. The following steps detail how leaders address this crisis.
1. Decrease job stressors and build adaptive capacity. Burnout is simply a ratio of increasing job stressors divided by the adaptive capacity/resiliency required to deal with those stressors, which results in the three cardinal symptoms of:
- Emotional exhaustion.
- Cynicism.
- Loss of meaning at work.
2. Build leaders, increase performance recovery and start with self. Begin with these concepts:
All healthcare team members are leaders.
- Lead yourself.
- Lead your team.
All healthcare team members are performance athletes, involved in a cycle of performance, rest and recovery.
- Invest in yourself.
- Invest in your team.
The work begins within.
3. Build organizational resilience. Job stressors arise from a combination of two things (or the lack thereof), which form the basis of organizational resilience:
- A culture of passion and fulfillment.
- Hardwiring flow into the systems and processes of healthcare. Stop doing stupid stuff and start doing smart stuff.
If the culture says one thing yet exhibits another in action, and “the words on the walls” don’t match the “happenings in the walls,” that disconnect is a major source of burnout, producing cynicism. Leader rounds to identify these disconnects are essential.
Hardwiring flow in systems and processes is simple: stop doing stupid stuff and start doing smart stuff. When the current system produces burnout in half its team, it is time to redesign it. Who should do that? The people who do the work in the system, since if they aren’t with you on the take-off, they won’t be with you on the landing. That’s the path to smart stuff and away from stupid stuff.
4. Build personal resilience. “The work begins within.” As important as changing systems and processes and enacting a culture of passion and fulfillment are, it is essential to start with ourselves, since we will be called upon to redesign the system and live the culture. To be clear, this is not saying that burnout is a failure of the individual team members and their lack of resiliency (Oh, so I’m the problem?) In fact, the specialties with the highest resilience rates have the highest burnout rates, due to excessive job stressors. Start with these areas:
- Commit to helping your team reconnect their passion and the deep joy that brought them to healthcare.
- Rededicate your leadership team to change the culture, systems and processes as the team identifies those needed changes.
- Make the patient a part of the team, which refocuses the “why” of healthcare.
- Remind the team that self-care is critical care.
These steps are the foundation for battling burnout and restoring resiliency.
Source: From an article by Thom Mayer, MD, FACEP, FAAP, FACHE, executive vice president, leadership, LogixHealth, Bedford, Mass., and medical director, NFL Players Association.