Burnout. It's a topic that has been heavily discussed across the healthcare industry over the last few years and is a challenge that is still prevalent with providers today. To combat this, Roberto Colón, MD, vice president of medical affairs, chief medical officer at Dayton, Ohio-based Premier Health, is urging healthcare organizations to lean on partnerships.
From volume issues to personal stressors, the feeling of burnout is affecting enjoyment and engagement in provider careers.
In fact, a recent survey by Eagle Hill Consulting found that burnout among the U.S. workforce is at 45%, with workload the driving factor behind employee burnout.
"It also has an impact on the pipeline, because when we see learners, students, residents and fellows working with them [providers], that starts giving them a view of what healthcare is going to be like once they get out," Dr. Colón told Becker's. "It can steer them away from one career path and into another. So there is a ripple effect that happens with that burnout and disengagement that I think we're seeing significantly."
For many providers, particularly independent providers who own their practices and are responsible for all management aspects, mounting financial pressures can also lead to burnout.
With labor and health education costs rising, there becomes a stronger need to generate income to offset the expenses.
"...We see that payers are becoming more and more restricted with their reimbursement for procedures and care," Dr. Colón said. "That imbalance means you've got to work even more to be able to have the same level of reimbursement that you had."
Another area of concern for providers is sufficient staffing and retention, particularly as the healthcare industry is seeing a combination of an aging workforce close to retirement or people looking to join another industry.
It's these continued departures that have sped up the gap in healthcare.
"I don't know that we've seen all those people who left be completely replaced yet in the workforce, there are still some significant gaps that we are seeing," Dr. Colón said.
So the question remains, how do we fix these challenges faced by providers?
At Premier Health, it started with recognizing that significant attention needs to be paid to the workforce pipeline and that partnerships are an important piece of the puzzle.
"We're a pretty robust institution, but we still can't do everything for every patient without partnering with our community organizations to be able to be much more effective in how we support our community," Dr. Colón said.
The health system has an affiliation agreement with Dayton-based Wright State University, where the two parties work to improve regional academic medicine, workforce, community health and economic developments.
"Part of that is going to help improve education for the medical school, have more opportunities for medical students, residents up and other allied workers to be able to get their experiential exposures, but also research," Dr. Colón said. "For us, it's going to be able to help develop a local pipeline of nurses, physicians, PAs, NPs and respiratory therapists that are going to help further support all of the growing patient needs that we're going to continue to have."
Strategic initiatives and culture are large parts of Premier Health's goal to improve the provider workforce and well being.
The health system has also invested in a well being program for its providers and a committee.
The committee assesses Premier's existing healthcare landscape and searches for areas where value can be added, like changes to the way that the health system delivers healthcare to reduce overutilization of resources and moving in directions that are most cost effective for patients.
Dr. Colón said that social activities like a 5k race or attending a baseball game with colleagues is a great way for employees to disconnect from work but stay connected as coworkers in a way that promotes support and a culture of togetherness.
"Whether you're East Coast, Midwest or West Coast, academic or private, public, I think everybody's going through similar challenges with just slightly different flavors. It's nothing that I think is unique to any institution," he said. "Perhaps the solutions are, where somebody may have come with something that is really effective and being able to share that. That's one of the things that I think is important for us to do, be more public about the initiatives that we are leading, whether they're effective or not, so that others can benefit from that as well."