National Academy of Medicine Outlines Plan to Curb Burnout, Bolster Health Workforce Well-Being

Abstract

To tackle an "epidemic of burnout"-exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic-that has threatened the US health care workforce for years, the National Academy of Medicine has launched a national plan to improve health worker well-being. The NAM's ambitious National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being grew out of work by the Clinician Well-Being Collaborative, a network of more than 200 organizations in the public and private sector, including organizations in the medical, nursing, and pharmacy communities. Burnout, defined as a workplace "syndrome characterized by high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization (eg, cynicism), and a low sense of personal accomplishment," has led a substantial number of clinicians to leave or contemplate leaving their positions. According to the American Medical Association-funded Coping With COVID study, in the first year of the pandemic, driven by burnout, nearly 24% of the more than 9000 physicians from various disciplines in the study and 40% of about 2300 nurses planned to leave their practice in the next 2 years. The NAM said that its new plan complements a May 2022 advisory from the US Surgeon General, which noted that health care workers were experiencing burnout that exceeds even the "crisis levels" present before the pandemic and called attention to COVID-19-related tensions resulting in bullying, harassment, threats, and violence against health workers both in the workplace and online. As a result of these stresses, health care workers have been experiencing physical and mental consequences associated with chronic work-related stress, such as emotional exhaustion, sleep disruptions and insomnia, anxiety, depression, and other problems. The Surgeon General's advisory also warned that the loss of health care personnel retiring or shifting to other types of work because of burnout "will affect the public's ability to get routine preventive care, emergency care, and medical procedures" and make it harder for the nation to be ready for the next public health emergency. The new NAM plan "provides a roadmap for the nation to set forth the priority areas, action steps, and actors who must work collectively to achieve a system where the health workforce is thriving in an environment that fosters their well-being," said NAM President Victor Dzau, MD, who co-chairs the Clinician Well-Being Collaborative. An overarching priority involves instilling "a culture of well-being" into the health care workplace and health care education through a range of actions, such as featuring approaches to decrease stress and burnout in strategic plans and human resources policies; promoting procedures to set "reasonable productivity expectations" and providing adequate resources to support those expectations; developing training and protocols for workers, staff, and leaders to address such issues as discrimination, bullying, and harassment; and investing in well-being leadership roles, such as Chief Wellness Officers, Chief Nursing Officers, and Chief Pharmacy Officers, that "report to executive leadership and governance and are integrated in the leadership team." As part of creating a culture of well-being, the plan calls for making settings more diverse, equitable, and inclusive through such actions as establishing policies and processes to support timely reporting of discriminatory behaviors and responding to them, offering mentorship programs, and ensuring that diverse and equitable leadership opportunities are available at many levels of health systems and training programs.