As healthcare leaders strive to create resilient organizations, one of the key elements they are addressing is employee burnout. Burnout is a concern at all organizational levels, including among those who lead. Healthcare leaders set the direction, standards and tone for their teams. Having leadership teams well-positioned to cope with the challenges that come to them is critical to organizational success.
In June 2021, ACHE collaborated with Thom A. Mayer, MD, FACHE, founder, BestPractices, medical director, NFL Players Association, and executive vice president, Leadership, LogixHealth, Bedford, Mass., and Stanford University researchers Tait Shanafelt, MD, and Mickey Trockel, MD, PhD, to examine burnout and other stress-related symptoms among healthcare administrators. A survey was sent to 5,670 ACHE members holding positions of department head/director and above in healthcare provider organizations. Of those, 1,269 responded, resulting in a 22% response rate among eligible respondents who received the survey.
The survey results indicated that one-third of healthcare leaders in the study had burnout scores in the high range. The survey also measured various aspects of leaders’ feelings about their work lives and health habits, with some interesting findings. (See “CEO Survey” and “Executive Survey” in the July/August and September/October 2022 issues of Healthcare Executive, respectively, for additional findings from this survey related to challenges in addressing job stress for leaders and leaders with high-range burnout scores.) Overall, respondents were largely satisfied with their careers, with 88.1% agreeing (39.6%) or strongly agreeing (48.5%) with the statement “I like my job.” Similarly, 86.8% agreed (42.8%) or strongly agreed (44.0%) that they would “recommend a career in healthcare leadership as a good field for young people.”
The degree to which leaders responding to the study felt professionally fulfilled was assessed using the Stanford Professional Fulfillment Index, which includes evaluation of meaning in work, sense of control when dealing with problems at work, feeling happy or worthwhile at work, and contributing professionally in the ways an individual values most. Healthcare leaders scored comparatively higher in this dimension than did physicians in earlier studies; 57% of leaders in this study had professional fulfillment scores in the high range.
Two individual factors were found to be strongly associated with higher burnout scores and less favorable professional fulfillment scores among healthcare leaders in the study after adjusting for differences in age, gender, relationship status, parental status, hours worked and position. The first was sleep-related impairment. Those respondents reporting evidence of poor sleep were more likely to have higher burnout scores and lower professional fulfillment scores. The second was self-valuation, a measure that looks at two things: a tendency to respond to personal imperfections with the desire to learn and improve rather than with self-disparagement, and appropriate prioritization of self-care and personal well-being. Higher burnout scores and lower professional fulfillment scores were found among leaders with lower self-valuation scores. The study results suggest that these areas merit attention as leaders consider their approaches to their work lives and organizations develop ways to address and reduce leader burnout.
A more extensive presentation of the study methods and results can be found in the September/October issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management.
ACHE thanks the healthcare leaders who responded to this survey for their time, consideration, and service to their profession and to healthcare leadership research.