6 Steps for Resolving Healthcare Burnout

In 2019, the National Academies of Medicine (NAM) reported that burnout among U.S. healthcare workers had reached crisis levels. That year, between 35% and 54% of nurses and physicians showed symptoms of the condition.

At the time, it seemed to be a monumental spike, but that was before 2020. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit one year later, those levels of burnout skyrocketed. Now, a study from Mental Health America (MHA) shows that 93% of healthcare workers say they’re stressed, 86% suffer from anxiety, 76% are exhausted, and 75% are overwhelmed. In addition, more than 50% of all public health workers suffer from at least one side effect of a high-stress workload, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

These numbers are startling, but they don’t have to be the norm. With the right tools, technologies, and strategies in place, healthcare organizations can support their employees and reduce levels of burnout among their staff.

Today, we’re sharing six steps that can help improve morale at your office and allow you to retain your company’s most valuable asset: your workforce. 

Understanding Rising Burnout Rates

Before we dive into ways to resolve this issue, let’s take a quick look at some of the top stressors that are currently affecting our nation’s medical workers. 

The MHA study reveals five key issues affecting these teams. Collectively, healthcare employees are:

• Stretched too thin 
• Worried about exposing their loved ones to disease
• Lacking emotional support
• Emotionally and physically exhausted 
• Struggling with home/life balance, especially in regards to parenting

Investing in updated software can ease some of these burdens, primarily by making tasks easier to perform. Yet, new workflows alone can’t solve the problem. There has to also be a transformative shift in workplace culture to help lighten the load of mounting industry pressures. When systems and strategy combine, real progress can occur. 

Here are six important ways that healthcare supervisors can help reduce rates of burnout among their employees.

1. Understand the Scale of the Issue

Before you can implement new procedures to reduce burnout at work, you need to know the full extent of the issue. While one office might experience ultra-high rates of team member stress, another might not deal with the same struggles. 

If you’ve already implemented resources to help your staff members effectively balance their workloads, then you may only need to make minimal changes to your policies. Conversely, a company that’s never dealt with burnout head-on may need to build its approach from the ground up.

From anonymous surveys and dedicated focus groups to town-hall style meetings and one-on-one reviews, establish ways to garner honest feedback from your employees. Once you have those insights in place, you can use advanced analysis tools to discover trends and patterns in the data. 

Report on those insights and share the findings with your leadership team and supervisors. This is the starting point that will influence the rest of your actions. Once you have policies in place, you can monitor their progress to evaluate their success. 

2. Invest in Improved Scheduling 

When asked to rate their top three personal stressors over the last three months, nearly 24% of healthcare workers in the MHA survey cited inconsistent work hours or scheduling issues. 

When employees clearly know their duties ahead of time and there are fewer surprises, it’s easier for them to establish a degree of work/life balance. Relying on outdated, spreadsheet-based scheduling systems leaves too much room for error and could result in frustrating issues, such as double-scheduled shifts. 

Apps like XenonChex take the guesswork out of shift responsibilities. Our tool allows workers to track and organize task completion, set automated reminders, and send notifications when deadlines are approaching. 

3. Prioritize Worker Flexibility

Healthcare employees might be essential workers, but they also have rich and valuable lives outside of the office walls.

By recognizing and honoring those personal obligations, organizations can help ease the burden that these workers feel on a daily basis. According to one recent report, 85% of physicians say work/life balance is their chief motivating factor when choosing a new job. 

Due to the nature of the job, you may not be able to give your staff Fridays off or allow them to work a hybrid/remote model, as so many other industries are embracing. Still, there are ways you can prioritize flexibility and ensure one worker isn’t carrying the brunt of any workload. These include:

• Setting manageable work hours
• Ensuring appropriate staff-to-patient ratios
• Implementing workplace safety measures
• Proving realistic time off 
• Allowing employees to switch shifts when appropriate 
• Identifying employees who can take extra shifts in the event of an emergency

With these procedures in place, you can help your employees feel more valued and respected. In turn, this helps quell feelings of burnout and exhaustion, which can often lead to resentment and dissent. 

Over the long term, working collaboratively with your workforce to understand and cater to their needs can also increase your rate of employee retention. With one new report showing that 47% of healthcare workers plan to leave their positions by 2025, this is a timely measure to take. 

4. Simplify and Automate Manual Processes

In addition to direct patient care, this field requires a significant amount of behind-the-scenes taskwork, including documentation and recordkeeping. When workers are required to spend a large portion of their time on these types of rote activities, it can exacerbate feelings of burnout.

In one American Medical Association (AMA) survey of 20,000 physicians across 30 specialties, one-third of respondents said they spend 20 hours or more per week on paperwork and administrative tasks. 

While electronic health records (EHR) help reduce the manual burden of these processes, they don’t eliminate the strain altogether. In fact, one study found that physicians spend around 27% of their day engaged in direct clinical face time with patients, and 49% on EHR management and desk work. 

Where possible, look for ways to eliminate or simplify tasks that don’t bring direct value to your office or the patients it serves. This includes routine activities such as document management, which can take much longer than necessary, especially when files are scattered among disparate systems. 

Our Custom Forms tool allows healthcare organizations to tailor the way they design forms and collect data. You can turn your forms into checklists, create new templates, or use standardized ones designed for your industry. This can help your staff complete administrative tasks quicker and more easily, so they can focus on the work that brings value (and revenue) to your team.

5. Evaluate and Redistribute Uneven Workloads

When healthcare workers begin to feel burned out, it often stems from a feeling that they’re being asked to do too much work under unrealistic constraints. 

Periodically, review each employee’s task load and consider how you can more evenly distribute the duties among your various teams. This process will reveal which workers are under undue amounts of pressure, which can be difficult to identify without a dedicated approach. 

In one recent study, researchers found that reducing a physician’s workload by only 10% can reduce the risk of burnout by 33%. Some ways you can do so include:

• Allow nurse practitioners to assume some administrative tasks (e.g. managing inbox for out-of-office physicians)
• Keep one appointment slot per day clear, so physicians can use that time for clerical work
• Utilize flexible reporting tools to see real-time task updates and make personnel changes as required 

6. Recognize and Reward Employees 

It might sound simple, but the reality is that a kind word of encouragement can go a long way toward motivating your workforce and diminishing feelings of burnout. 

In the aforementioned MHA survey, around 60% of physicians reported feeling unappreciated regularly over the past three months. 

In another survey, researchers found that while 63% of nurses feel they’re depicted more positively in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, 63% also feel that their jobs aren’t seen as “human” enough by patients and physicians. At the same time, 83% believe they’re overlooked for their essential role on the front line, while 63% believe their bosses show them appreciation in ways that feel patronizing. 

From time off work to a boost in pay, work with your teams to understand their motivators and develop appropriate incentives. Then, reward workers when they go above and beyond or perform a certain task especially well.

The XenonChex platform shows Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) right when you log into your dashboard, so you’re always up-to-date on employee progress. 

Curb Healthcare Burnout Before It Starts

From front-office staff to nurses, physicians, and assistants, each healthcare office includes essential teams performing invaluable services. To maintain your level of performance and respond to varying patient needs, it’s critical to keep morale in check. 

When employees feel ill-prepared, under-equipped, and over-stressed, they’re more likely to experience symptoms of burnout. With the right strategy and tools in place, you can empower them to excel and help them achieve a healthy work/life balance. 

XenonChex provides technology solutions that simplify scheduling, facilitate task management and ease administrative workloads. Schedule a demo today or contact us to learn more.