The Science of Health Care Worker Burnout: Assessing and Improving Health Care Worker Well-Being

Abstract

Context.— Problems with health care worker (HCW) well-being have become a leading concern in medicine given their severity and robust links to outcomes like medical error, mortality, and turnover. Objective.— To describe the state of the science regarding HCW well-being, including how it is measured, what outcomes it predicts, and what institutional and individual interventions appear to reduce it. Data Sources.— Peer review articles as well as multiple large data sets collected within our own research team are used to describe the nature of burnout, associations with institutional resources, and individual tools to improve well-being. Conclusions.— Rates of HCW burnout are alarmingly high, placing the health and safety of patients and HCWs at risk. To help address the urgent need to help HCWs, we summarize some of the most promising early interventions, and point toward future research that uses standardized metrics to evaluate interventions (with a focus on low-cost institutional and personal interventions).