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Tag: Burnout

Don’t Blame Burnout

BY SANJ KATYAL

It is hard to open a medical journal in any specialty without seeing an article on burnout. There are statistics, trends, and of course a myriad of causes detailed in these articles. A few even offer some sensible solutions – flexible scheduling, peer support, delegation of clerical work and an increased focus on personal well-being activities are steps in the right direction. 

I have previously written that “the absence of burnout does not equal wellness” just as the absence of disease does not imply health. We deserve more than simply the ability to function, we deserve to flourish. This is where a field such as positive psychology, or what many call the science of happiness, can offer some evidence-based guidance. 

What has become clear over the past few years is that many people are giving new buzzwords like burnout or moral injury too much credit for their unhappiness. Many of us are not well, either personally or professionally. It’s not as if we are joyful, peaceful and fulfilled at home and then suddenly begin to suffer only when we go to work. 

Our jobs, colleagues or even the draconian healthcare system are not to blame for our discontent. Many of us may feel burned out but it has little to do with our career choice. Not many of us are fulfilled. Not many of us are content. Not many of us are free of stress and anxiety. Most of us seem to be restless and want to feel better all the time. So we blame our jobs, our bank account, people around us, even the world, and call it burnout. Burnout, while a significant problem for some people is now conveniently being used by many to shift the blame away from ourselves. We are the problem. But the good new is that we are also the solution. It is our lack of understanding that causes us to feel perpetually discontent and  frantically chase happiness in various forms. It can only be understanding that will set us free. 

What is it that we have not understood? What are the questions deep within us that we never have the courage to ask?

Why are we not fulfilled? Why are we restless and anxious much of the time? Why do we crave distractions in phones, TV and alcohol?

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The Disease Killing Healthcare and Causing Physician Burnout

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BY SCOTT MACDIARMID

We have a healthcare crisis . . . and the crisis is now. Costs are soaring out of control, threatening the financial health of individuals and our nation. Quality of care is deteriorating, in spite of “world class care” signs seemingly on every corner. And physicians are checking out and burning out. I believe it’s one of the greatest societal issues of our day.

So, you may be wondering: How in the heck did we get ourselves into such a mess? In the greatest country in the world who spends the most on healthcare and is regularly bragging on how great it is, what happened? 

Experts and pundits alike tout a litany of reasons. Increasing life expectancy, our reliance on sophisticated and expensive diagnostic tests and treatments, the costs of big pharma, duplication of care, fraud and abuse—the list goes on. Although these are all important contributors, none of them points to the underlying disease that’s killing healthcare.

The healthcare system in some respects is like the human body. It has seven systems, and the health and survival of each is largely dependent on the health of the others, much like the inter-dependent relationship of the organs of the human body. For example, if your liver or kidneys fail, your body’s health is severely impacted, even if your heart and lungs are functioning normally. 

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Accepting your Future Avatar: Leveraging Digital Twins for Transforming Healthcare

by  SMRITI KIRUBANANDAN

A possibility to do better and be better by observing yourself (your twin) reacting to various feeds and gaining the ability to gain better care and improve research, seems like a super power. The concept of a Digital Twin is the ability to replicate a person, an object or a process derived from extracting various data points from internet of things (IOT) that are attached to the original object. One can view how the digital twin responds to various feeds and give us a deeper understanding on the possibilities and impact for the real person or object. Shifting this concept into healthcare, I am going to take this up a notch and propose, what if a person has an opportunity to accept their future avatar presented to them and it is reflected and implemented immediately?

As per Research and Markets report 

  • Up to 89% of all IoT platforms will include digital twins by 2025
  • Digital twinning will be a standard IoT feature by 2027
  • Nearly 36% of executives across a variety of industries understand the benefits of digital twinning, with about half of them planning to use it in their operations by 2028

Here are some of the ways a Digital Twin would play a role in making healthcare accurate, smart and reliable while greatly improving member experience: 

Delivering the right Frequency of Care 

In the United States, 400,000 hospital patients experience some form of preventable harm each year, accounting for a cost of over $20 billion annually.

Giving the proper care at the right time is vital in improving patient experience and the quality of care, and reducing healthcare costs. By using the digital twin concept, we can replicate the process, understand a person’s reactions to different treatments, and help customize the frequency of care needed. That might include understanding and getting more precise with the medication doses based on the Twin’s reactions or refining a type of surgical procedure based on possible recovery and impact. It might inspire a patient to make the right decisions based on the digital twin at the right time. Accepting their future avatar might give a patient hope and psychological comfort before starting a treatment or procedure and, most importantly, could build trust with their provider.

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A Country Doctor Reads: What if Burnout Is Less About Work and More About Isolation? (NYT)

BY HANS DUVEFELT

This weekend I read a piece in The New York Times that put a slightly different slant on what burnout, in the case of physician burnout, is or is caused by. We have heard theories from being asked to do the wrong thing, like data entry, to “moral injury” to my favorite, “burnout skills“, when you keep trying to do the impossible because people praise you when you pull it off.

Tish Harrison Warren’s piece is a dialog between her and psychiatrist/author Curt Thompson. He focuses on isolation as a driver of burnout:

Assume that if you’re burned out, your brain needs the help of another brain. Your brain is not going to be OK until or unless you have the experience and opportunity of being in the presence of someone else who can begin to ask you the kind of questions that will allow you to name the things that you’re experiencing.

The moment that you start to tell your story vulnerably to someone else, and that person meets you with empathy — without trying to fix your loneliness, without trying to fix your shame — your entire body will begin to change. Not all at once. But you feel distinctly different.

I’m not as lonely in that moment because you are with me. And I sense you sensing me. That’s a neural reality.

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Take a Tip from Domino’s

By KIM BELLARD

If you’re already thinking ahead to next Sunday’s Super Bowl, you might be thinking about Domino’s, because, as everyone knows, pizza and football go together like mom and apple pie.  I’m thinking about Domino’s too, but not because I’m planning my order.  It’s about their new program to reward customers who do more of their own work.  

Ahem, healthcare: pay attention.

Last week Domino’s announced that customers who picked up their own orders, rather than using delivery, would earn a $3 tip.  Art D’Elia, Domino’s executive president and chief marketing officer, explained: 

It takes skill to get pizza from a Domino’s store to your door. As a reward, Domino’s is giving a $3 tip to online carryout customers who take the time and energy out of their day to act as their own delivery drivers. After all, we think they deserve it. 

The program – Domino’s Carryout Tips – isn’t quite as rewarding as it might sound.  The $3 is actually a credit on your next order, and that credit has to be used by the following week.  There’s a $5 minimum to qualify, and orders have to be online.  The program was announced in time for the expected Super Bowl surge and is scheduled to end May 22.  

But still.  I don’t like waiting for deliveries, I do like pizza, and if I ordered a lot of Domino’s (which I don’t), the $3 tip would be decent discount, even if I had to order even more Domino’s to actually get it.

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We are Asking Our Physicians to Do Too Much. It’s No Wonder They are Burnt Out.

By GAIL PEACE

We have heard the phrases “physician fatigue” and “burnout” too often in the last year – and for good reason. Covid-19 has placed an incredible burden on our healthcare providers. However, as healthcare professionals, the stats representing physician burnout are not new for us.  

We have seen similar trends and stats for years. Covid-19 did not cause the current state of physician burnout, it has just exacerbated it and further exposed critical issues with the expectations placed on physicians in today’s healthcare system. Ludi conducted a survey of physicians across the country confirming that exact theory:

  • 68 percent of physicians feel pessimistic or indifferent about their occupation
  • 48 percent describe the relationship with their hospital partners/employers as combative or transactional at best

We need to ask ourselves: What is actually causing this dissatisfaction and how can hospitals better align with their physician partners?  

According to the physicians surveyed, 68 percent agreed they have too much administrative burden placed on them. More often than not, our industry blames EHRs for dominating administrative time, but from the physicians we surveyed, EHRs are just part of the problem. In fact, 54 percent of physicians indicated they spend 1-3 hours per day on administrative work outside of EHR time, with another 35 percent spending more than 4 hours per day on similar tasks.

Let’s put that into perspective. On top of seeing patients, charting in EHRs, and all the other things physicians are expected to do to take care of patients, physicians are also spending at least another 1-3 hours per day on “everything else.” This everything else includes meetings, training, compliance, policy, etc.  

We are asking our physicians to do too much. It’s no wonder they are burnt out.

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As Doctor Burnout Climbs, Can We Save Primary Care?

By RONALD DIXON

Week after week, I hear from colleagues in diverse specialties about how exhausted they are from practicing medicine.

It’s no surprise that they are looking for careers outside of medicine. The demands and strain are unsustainable.

So it’s also no surprise that a recent survey showed 40% of primary care clinicians are worried that their field won’t exist in five years and that 21% expect to leave primary care in three years as a result of COVID-19-related burnout. 

While COVID-19 is the tipping point, this burnout is the result of the relentless and mounting administrative burden placed on us by electronic medical records (EMRs), coding and billing requirements and prior authorizations. And then it is exacerbated by uncertainty mounting in the primary care field, with new medical care entrants popping up everywhere — from retail pharmacies to digital health startups — aiming to create their own primary care model, replacing rather than working with existing ones.

Where it All Began

The roots of this burden began three decades ago with the advent of an acronym that few outside of the healthcare world know of today — the resource-based relative value scale (RBRVS). This payment system, launched in 1989 and subsequently adopted by Medicare in 1992, led to what we know now as the foundation of the U.S. healthcare payment system.  

The RBRVS system assigns procedures a relative value which is adjusted by geographic region. Prices are based on physician work (54%), practice expense (41%) and malpractice expense (5%).

Since the initiation of the scale, the relative value of specialist work has remained much higher than primary care. This disparate compensation, in combination with most health maintenance and patient supportive tasks delegated to primary care, has led to significant fatigue. 

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Burnout? Not Even Close!

By HANS DUVEFELT

I am a 68 year old family physician in rural Maine. This morning I read yet another article about physician burnout, this time in The New York Times. (I’m not linking to it, because they have a “paywall”.)

I did not end up exactly where and how I expected to be at the end of my career, or life in general to be brutally honest. But I am the happiest I have been since the beginning of my journey in medicine.

I have a balance in my life I didn’t have, or even seek, for many years as I juggled patient care, administration, raising a family and pursuing interests that often brought me away from home.

My days in the clinic are a bit shorter than they used to be, but in the past several years I have had to do much more work from home – even more so in the last two. The “half-empty glass” way to look at this is that work has intruded more into my personal life and my home. The “half-full” view is that I can do my computer work when it suits me the best. For one of my clinic positions, I can do charting on an iPad mini in bed, coffe on my nightstand and sleeping dogs at my feet. The clumsier EMR requires a laptop (which in my view can’t be used the way its name might suggest) I sometimes work on in the barn and sometimes on a picnic table in the grass outside.

Ironically, the pandemic has brought me a peace and clarity I probably wouldn’t have achieved otherwise.

I had thought moving back to Caribou for a position with no administrative responsibilities would open up social opportunities I hadn’t allowed myself for the last few years. I expected to become involved with the Swedish community here, connecting more with neighbors and other horse owners, and so on.

But the lockdown forced me to sit more with my own thoughts, my own feelings and memories. It forced me to consider, not for the first time but again, that in this unpredictable life, the only sure thing is that I am me and I am where I am.

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The Art and Soul of Medicine Exist in the Ordinary

By HANS DUVEFELT

The Art of Medicine is Doing the Ordinary Well

Primary care doctors don’t usually operate any sophisticated medical instruments or perform any advanced procedures. But there is still art in what we do. We take care of ordinary ailments in ordinary people and that can be done well or not so well. There is no obvious glamor in it, but when our prescriptions, basic procedures or simple advice help people feel better, we live up to our own and our patients’ hopes and expectations – and some of the time, we even exceed them.

Art is art, regardless of the medium or subject. Weren’t the old Dutch masters’ most appreciated paintings depictions of ordinary people in ordinary circumstances? Not every artist gets to paint the Sistine Chapel.

So many things in our culture are at the two extremes of poorly done and exquisite: fast fashion or haute couture, drive-up burgers or five star restaurants. Fewer things are made with care by craftspeople for individual users. Medicine needs to be more like that in order to bring real healing in many conditions.

In our everyday encounters with our patients, we are often distracted by things other than what they expect or hope to get from us. We have agendas imposed on us for preventive care and public health purposes. It is sometimes hard to do your best if you can’t concentrate on the issue at hand. Art requires focus. It is not a casual endeavor. It requires attention to detail, just as much as a vision of the big idea. It is – or should be – for each of us, in order to do our best, to find the balance between those two aspects of our work.

The Soul of Medicine is Connecting as Humans

We are not technicians. We treat the whole person, because most things in primary care are diseases that affect more than just one organ. We now also, again (historically), accept that diseases of the body may have their root causes in what we call the soul. In order to know and treat another person, we must show our own. Only if we do that will we learn enough to be of any real help to the patient who hopes to trust us enough to take our advice. We must create connection.

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Mindful Daily Practice Offers an Antidote to Healthcare Burnout

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By GREG HAMMER, MD

Burnout among healthcare professionals is at an all-time high. Its drivers include longer work hours, the push to see more patients, more scrutiny by administrators, and loss of control over our practice. We seem to spend more time with the electronic medical record and less time face-to-face with our patients.

I have faced burnout personally. My son passed away at the age of 29, which was beyond painful. At the same time, I felt burdened by the growing number and complexity of metrics by which I was judged at work. Days in the operating room and intensive care unit seemed more and more exhausting, and my patience was becoming shorter and shorter. I was fortunate to have had a long-standing meditation practice as well as sabbatical time that I used to decompress and re-evaluate my career. Many of us are not so lucky. More than half of physicians have serious signs of burnout, and more than one physician commits suicide every day.

So many of us feel burned out these days because in our rapidly changing profession we are asked to do more for less and with inadequate resources. We suffer from exhaustion, self-criticism, and worry about what will happen next to our practice, our families, and ourselves. If we want to save our practices, patients, marriages- even our lives, we must acquire personal resilience.

Fortunately, we can increase our resilience and happiness and reverse burnout by embracing a few simple principles—Gratitude, Acceptance, Intention, and Nonjudgment (GAIN)—that we can put into motion in our everyday lives at the hospital, at home, or wherever we are.

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