Resource Library

Burnout research has considered a wide range of organizational correlates of burn out. It is argued that integrating these various organizational qualities into a com prehensive model of organizational environments will further research on burnout. The primary themes in burnout research fit readily into six areas of worklife; work load, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. These areas are sufficiently broad to encompass the rich variety of research approaches taken in the field while being sufficiently precise to permit clear distinctions among them. The review identifies a consistent body of research on the relationships of these six areas with burnout. The review concludes by considering issues for a research agenda on the organizational antecedents of burnout and noting the implications of a focus on mismatches for interventions.

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This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Meaningful Rewards & Recognition

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A scale designed to assess various aspects of the burnout syndrome was administered to a wide range of human services professionals. Three subscales emerged from the data analysis: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Various psychometric analyses showed that the scale has both high reliability and validity as a measure of burnout.

With burnout and staff turnover in health care continuing to rise at alarming rates, this resource is intended to help leaders guide conversations with colleagues about “What matters to you?” — Step 1 of the Four Steps for Leaders, described in detail in the IHI White Paper, IHI Framework for Improving Joy in Work.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Establish a Culture of Shared Commitment).

Discover essential tools and resources designed to empower hospital staffing committees in implementing the 2023 safe staffing law.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Improving Workload & Workflows (Safe & Appropriate Staffing).

AMA STEPS Forward^® open-access resources offer innovative strategies that allow physicians and their organizations to thrive in the new health care environment. These resources can help you prevent physician burnout, create the organizational foundation for joy in medicine, and improve practice efficiency.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Improving Workload & Workflows (Reducing Administrative Burdens).

The burden of clinical documentation on professionals, such as work done in the EHR, has had a proven negative impact on health care. This burden leads to a variety of negative outcomes including clinician burnout and decreased job satisfaction, increased medical errors and hospital-acquired conditions.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Improving Workload & Workflows (Reducing Administrative Burdens).

Workplace violence can be prevented, and nurses can lead the way. This  webinar addresses what every nurse needs to know about the challenge of workplace violence against nurses. Topics addressed include:The scope and cost of WPV in healthcare for nurses, patients, and healthcare organizations;Common factors related to organizational culture that can prevent implementation of successful WPV programs;Core components of a program to manage and prevent WPV;What you can do to support effectiveness and sustainability of a WPV program and culture of worker and patient safety;Resources from ANA and other sources that nurses can access to enhance or develop a WPV program.

KEY POINTS

• Workplace violence can happen to any type of worker in any work setting, though some workers have a higher risk.
• Workplace violence can cause long-term effects, both physical and psychological.
• NIOSH funds, conducts, and publishes research to reduce workplace violence.

‍This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Ensuring Physical & Mental Health (Workplace Violence Prevention).

[This is an excerpt.] For decades, long-standing inequities have exacerbated health issues in low-income communities and communities of color, resulting in persistent health disparities. Accountable Communities for Health (ACHs) provide a powerful framework for tackling those inequities by breaking down barriers and promoting a new way of working together. [To read more, click View Resource.]

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Invest/Advocate for Patients, Communities, & Workers).

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[This is an excerpt.] The ongoing pandemics — both COVID-19 and racism — have laid bare the dehumanizing and damaging effects of structural racism throughout our country. Regrettably, we see these effects in academic medicine as well. As we wrote in our June 1, 2020, statement, all academic medicine leaders — including the AAMC — must step up and transform rhetoric into action. We as individuals, as an association, as part of the academic medicine community, and as members of society need to do our own work, individually and collectively, to create a shared vision of the AAMC and academic medicine institutions as diverse, equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist organizations. We acknowledge this work can and will be difficult for even the most skilled, experienced, and well-intentioned. This framework will serve as a strategic imperative; guide our own internal efforts at the AAMC; and help amplify, support, and accelerate the efforts of our member institutions to catalyze change in academic medicine. The shared vision should emanate from our own thinking at the AAMC and from lessons learned from our members and affinity groups, the communities of which we are a part, and the communities we serve. Through our efforts, we can address and work toward eliminating racism not only within academic medicine but also in our communities and the nation. The sense of urgency called out in our June 1, 2020, statement has ignited discussions among our staff, leaders of our member institutions, and our constituents, and it has led us to identify four sets of concrete actions to pursue as the AAMC. [To read more, click View Resource.]

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This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Professional Associations: Spotlights: Professional Associations Relational Strategies (Improving Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion).

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Through the Respect for People program, staff receive mandatory training on these listening and collaboration behaviors, which are incorporated in VM’s leadership expectations; patient and team member experience efforts; diversity, equity and inclusion strategy; and process improvement work. How does this build trustworthiness? The Virginia Mason Medical Center Respect for People program builds trust by fostering an inclusive, psychologically safe workplace climate in which all team members foster respectful behavior (e.g., listening to understand, keeping one’s promises) during interactions with patients and each other, and where individuals feel safe to ask for help, discuss problems and admit errors as we work together toward our vision to be the quality leader and transform health care.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Empowering Worker & Learner Voice (Worker & Learner Engagement).

[This is an excerpt.] Having a family member who is a health careworker presents special challenges for those who love them. If you are a spouse, significant other,parent, or friend of a health care worker who has been on the frontline during the COVID-19pandemic, you are likely struggling with how to best support them through this time of crisis. While these health care workers are experiencing the same disruptions and challenges most adults in our country are experiencing, including social isolation,financial insecurities, and extreme changes in daily routines, they are also experiencing unique stressors that cannot be underestimated. In the early days and weeks of the pandemic, our health care workers had to deal with fear of the unknown and the uncertainly about how to protect themselves and their families from this novel coronavirus. Access to personal protective equipment (PPE) was limited, and concerns grew daily about bed and ventilator availability and the adequacy of nursing and physician staffing. The physical exhaustion of long hours, the need to don full PPE for every patient contact, continually changing procedures, working in isolation, and being in a constant state of high alert quickly began taking a physical toll. But the unseen emotional toll may be even greater than the physical toll. Nurses, doctors, and other health care workers all share the challenges of watching so many physically suffer, having patients die alone, supporting family members who can’t be at the bedside of their loved ones due to visitor restrictions, and being unable to do more. We have called these health care workers “heroes,”as indeed they are. Now we need to acknowledge that they are also human and require special supports to ensure that their personal physical and emotional needs are met. By understanding their needs, you as a family member or a friend are in a unique position to provide these tailored supports. Consider the following steps,modeled from the NOVA Crisis Response, for supporting your special health care worker throughout this COVID-19 pandemic. [To read more, click View Resource.]

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This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Working & Learners: What the Public Can Do

[This is an excerpt.] Our caregivers continued to demonstrate heroism in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, responding to challenges, including new variants and surges, with empathy and courage. We continued to invest in our caregivers’ safety and resilience, keeping them informed during a time of rapid change and uncertainty. Caregiver teams across the enterprise came together to maintain, improve and expand programs to support and recognize their colleagues. [To read more, click View Resource.]

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Empowering Worker & Learner Voice (Worker & Learner Engagement).

[This is an excerpt.] Our vision is to be the best place to work in healthcare. To this end, we strive to create an exceptional work experience for our caregivers where they feel safe, valued, supported and empowered to voice ideas and concerns. Our caregiver engagement initiatives are an important aspect of our workplace culture and support our efforts to attract and retain top talent. [To read more, click View Resource.]

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Empowering Worker & Learner Voice (Worker & Learner Engagement).

[This is an excerpt.] Cleveland Clinic has an extensive safety program to inform and protect our caregivers. Our safety teams are responsible for providing training and resources to prevent safety events, responding when events occur, and reviewing safety performance for continuous improvement. Our Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) team monitors and implements safety practices at our main campus and family health centers. Each Cleveland Clinic hospital maintains safety plans specific to their unique environment of care. [To read more, click View Resource.]

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Empowering Worker & Learner Voice (Worker & Learner Engagement).

[This is an excerpt.] Our experts understand the importance of helping you to foster a nurturing and supportive work environment that enables your team to thrive.

The WorkLife Wellbeing Operational Framework addresses each of the factors that contribute to a caregivers wellbeing, and is designed to:

• Acknowledge the relationship between work experience and overall WorkLife Wellbeing.
• Establish a common language around wellbeing that is applicable to a broad workforce with varying wellbeing needs.
• Highlight the strategic partnerships and varied approaches that can be utilized to address wellbeing concerns. [To read more, click View Resource.]

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Establish a Culture of Shared Commitment).

Learn how to identify and assess community concerns, needs, and assets.

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Invest/Advocate for Patients, Communities, & Workers).

[This is an excerpt.] Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Supporting Professional Well-Being, a 2019 report from the National Academy of Medicine, identifies clinician burnout as a threat to the quality of patient care. Mounting system pressures within the U.S. health care system have contributed to an imbalance in which the demands of the clinician’s job are greater than the resources and supports available to them.

Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout was released before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Addressing clinician burnout remains critical and more relevant than ever in the context of the pandemic and increased strains placed on the U.S. health care system. The report and its related products ultimately aim to help support clinician well-being and patient care, during COVID-19 and beyond. Targeting health information technology (IT) can be a major opportunity to address workplace hardships and prioritize improvements in work and learning environments in all settings, as the health care workforce was burdened prior to COVID-19 and now faces additional stressors that will have impacts on their health and well-being in the long term.

Health care leaders should implement health IT that supports clinicians in providing high-quality patient care. This requires the engagement of leaders across the organization, including hospital boards, executive officers and senior leaders, department chairs, and administrative and operational leaders, as well as health IT vendors, regulators, policymakers, and end users – clinicians and patients. [To read more, click View Resource.]

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Improving Workload & Workflows (Reducing Administrative Burdens).

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[This is an excerpt.] Welcome to the American Hospital Association’s Community Health Assessment Toolkit. As in earlier releases, this updated toolkit provides a nine-step guide for hospitals and health systems to collaborate with their communities and strategic partners to conduct a community health assessment (CHA) and meet community health needs assessment (CHNA) requirements. [To read more, click View Resource.]

This resource is found in our Actionable Strategies for Health Organizations: Aligning Values (Invest/Advocate for Patients, Communities, & Workers).

[This is an excerpt.] The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has a critical responsibility to advance the connectivity of electronic health information and interoperability of health information technology (healthIT). This is consistent with its mission to protect the health of all Americans and provide essential humanservices, especially for those who are least able to help themselves. This work has become particularly urgent with the need to address the national priority of better and more affordable health care, leading to better population health. Achieving this goal will only be possible with a strong, flexible health IT ecosystem that can appropriately support transparency and decision-making, reduce redundancy, inform payment reform, and help to transform care into a model that enhances access and truly addresses health beyond the confines of the health care system. Such an infrastructure will support more efficient and effective systems, scientific advancement, and lead to a continuously improving health system that empowers individuals, customizes treatment, and accelerates cure of disease. [To read more, click View Resource.]