Clinician Burnout is a Patient Safety Issue
Research has found that clinicians suffering from burnout are twice as likely to be involved in patient safety incidents. The research team concluded:
Burnout is a strong predictor for career disengagement in physicians as well as for patient care. Moving forward, investment strategies to monitor and improve physician burnout are needed as a means of retaining the healthcare workforce and improving the quality of patient care. Scalable implementation of effective interventions for physician burnout, such as those improving the culture of healthcare organisations, and multicomponent interventions are strongly supported by our findings.
Echoing these concerns is the recently released ERCI report, “Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2024”. Placing clinician burnout as the fifth patient safety concern, the ECRI report emphasizes the declining situation since the COVID pandemic, saying:
Although healthcare workers have long been subjected to stressful work environments that affect their emotional and physical well-being, ongoing challenges that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic have only exacerbated the problem.
Has Clinician Burnout Affected You?
In a comment, please let us know if:
- You as a patient have seen clinician burnout and how that has impacted your care; or
- You are a clinician and how burnout has impacted your life or the lives of your patients.