Photo by Hush Naidoo | Unsplash
IHI Director of Communications Madge Kaplan and IHI Director Jessica Perlo are teaming up with #hcldr co-founder and moderator Colin Hung to host a Twitter Chat at this year's IHI National Forum. On Tuesday, December 10 at 8:30 PM Eastern Time, join the discussion about joy in work. The following is an excerpt from the HCLDR blog:
You don’t have to look far to find media coverage of physician burnout. With growing evidence of burnout among nurses, too, reporters, health care leaders, mental health experts, health care educators, professional associations, and more are paying constant attention to the worrying trends. The recently released National Academy of Medicine report, Taking Action Against Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being is the latest attempt to compile what’s known about the causes and extent of burnout among especially clinicians. The message of the report is clear: an epidemic that’s approaching nearly one out of every two physicians deserves an ‘all hands-on deck’ response and serious exploration and piloting of possible remedies.
In the best-case scenario, awareness raising of this prominent sort plus other research and activity on the ground will galvanize systems-level initiatives across the country and start to build the evidence for what’s most effective. This includes building on what we know helps. Gatherings such as IHI’s National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care (now in its 31st year), where I’m headed in a few days, remain an embodiment of optimism and renewal. It’s hard NOT to feel uplifted when you’re surrounded by several thousand colleagues well-versed in quality improvement, deeply into their projects and initiatives, proud of their results to improve patient care, keen to share and network, and eager to return home to apply new ideas to do even better. But, returning home full of big ideas and hopes of change has gotten harder. And, for many doctors and nurses, it’s gotten harder still to stay connected to the passion that led them to their chosen professions. Because of increasing administrative demands, there’s less time spent in direct patient care, and because of impediments, like poorly-designed EHRs, there are daily frustrations and a relentless sense of not enough hours in the day to get the work done.
Go to HCLDR to read the full text.
