Provider burnout is on the rise, yet optimal provider well-being is necessary for high-quality care: Thriving providers have better patient outcomes and higher patient satisfaction scores, and they are less likely to make mistakes. They are also less likely to leave their organizations. This resource kit can serve as a starting point to tackle burnout at health care organizations.

Must-Read Article

“Physician Well-Being: The Reciprocity of Practice Efficiency, Culture of Wellness, and Personal Resilience”
Defines provider well-being and provides an evidence-based approach for holistically improving provider well-being and the performance of health care systems. (Bryan Bohman et al., New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst, August 7, 2017)

If You Want to Learn More

• “Charter on Physician Well-Being” (Larissa R. Thomas, Jonathan A. Ripp, Colin P. West, JAMA Network Open, April 17, 2018)
• “The Business Case for Investing in Physician Well-Being” (Tait Shanafelt,  Joel Goh, Christine Sinsky, JAMA Internal Medicine, December 2017)
• “How One California Medical Group Is Decreasing Physician Burnout” (Sophia Arabadjis and Erin E. Sullivan, Harvard Business Review, June 7, 2017)
• “Executive Leadership and Physician Well-being: Nine Organizational Strategies to Promote Engagement and Reduce Burnout” (Tait D. Shanafelt and John H. Noseworthy, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, January 2017)
• “Make the Clinician Burnout Epidemic a National Priority” (Andrew Shin, Tejal Gandhi, and Shoshana Herzig, Health Affairs, April 21, 2016)
• “Physician-Organization Collaboration Reduces Physician Burnout and Promotes Engagement: The Mayo Clinic Experience” (S. Swensen, A. Kabcenell, and T. Shanafelt, Journal of Healthcare Management, March-April 2016)
• “Beyond Burnout — Redesigning Care to Restore Meaning and Sanity for Physicians” (Alexi Wright and Ingrid Katz, New England Journal of Medicine, January 25, 2018)
• “2016 Physician Wellness Survey Report (PDF)” (Mickey Trockel et al., Stanford Medicine, 2017)

Other Resources

• American Medical Association — Steps Forward
• Center for Patient and Provider Experience
• Mayo Clinic — Physician Well-Being Program
• Stanford University — WellMD Center
• New England Journal of Medicine — Podcast with Tait Shanafelt, Chief Wellness Officer at Stanford Medicine
• UCSF Center for Excellence in Primary Care

A Tool to Try

Experiment with a short, validated tool from the Mayo Clinic (PDF, p. 3). The questions in Table 1, “Items Evaluating Physician Opinion of the Leadership Qualities of Their Immediate Physician Supervisor,” will help you assess burnout in your own organization and provide feedback to managers to help make improvements in provider well-being.

Source: “Impact of Organizational Leadership on Physician Burnout and Satisfaction” (Tait Shanafelt et al., Mayo Clinic Proceedings, March 18, 2015)