COVID Made Health Care Burnout Worse. Heres What Those Workers Need Now

The COVID pandemic has significantly increased feelings of burnout and stress among health care workers in the United States, according to a federal survey released this week. This crisis did not start with Covid, but the past three years have exacerbated long-term psychological stress and trauma among workers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, these conditions threaten the survival of the nation's health care workforce, especially if the system does not take immediate steps to improve conditions for these essential workers.

According to a CDC report, nearly half (46% of respondents) of US healthcare workers said they will often feel burned out in 2022, up 14 percentage points from 2018. At the same time, employees feel more exhausted. incidents of harassment. confidence in the administration was shaken. Nearly four in 10 healthcare workers said they were likely to change jobs in 2022, compared with three in 10 healthcare workers before the pandemic began.

Graphic by Vanessa Dennis/PBS NewsHour

Healthcare workers have spent years of their lives becoming doctors, nurses and specialists, Dr. Kristin Sinski, vice president of medical health at the American Medical Association. If they wanted to quit, he added, "that's a red flag."

"The burden of human suffering has a profound impact on this vital workforce," said Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC's chief medical officer and one of the authors of the report, told reporters on Tuesday.

This exposure is often unavoidable during a pandemic, Dr. Mysheika Roberts, commissioner of public health in Columbus, Ohio. Trying to protect his community from the virus, which continues to evolve as medical science advances, Roberts said he and his staff worked around the clock for more than three years and faced "tremendous resistance from the public." "

He said health and safety measures such as wearing masks, social distancing and distributing vaccines caused the greatest resistance. To make this predicament even more difficult, Roberts added that the politicization of COVID has also led to healthcare workers being perceived as the "bad guys."

"People were cruel," Roberts said. "My employees were subjected to this abuse."

Graphic by Vanessa Dennis/PBS NewsHour

Deteriorating working conditions continue to marginalize some health workers. In early October, 75,000 workers went on strike against Kaiser Permanente's health care system, citing fatigue, harassment, low wages and understaffing, and demanding that management take action to improve it.

Concerns about the sustainability of the industry's workforce existed long before the pandemic, Sinsky said. Studies show that doctors spend nearly twice as much time on administrative tasks as updating electronic medical records, talking to insurance companies, or answering emails compared to face-to-face patients. That overburden has become an unbearable burden for a growing number of doctors and health care providers, Sinsky said. Over the years, "we doctors realized that we spend our days doing the wrong things for our patients."

Fatigue is only one part of the challenges faced by healthcare workers. Almost half of all practicing physicians are over 55, Dr. American Medical Association President Jesse Ehrenfeld said this during a speech at the National Press Club on Wednesday. At the same time, medical schools can't fill open positions fast enough, and the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that communities across the country will experience a shortage of nearly 100,000 physicians over the next decade.

CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen on Wednesday, but it's critical for the safety of healthcare providers and patients going forward.

"We need to make sure that we think about the health of our workforce so that we have health workers, whether it's doctors, nurses or others, who are willing to help this country," he said.

According to the CDC, changing the way employers operate and the way supervisors systematically manage the health care workforce can improve morale, even if there are insufficient resources to increase staffing.

Research shows that managers and support systems that acknowledge employee input, prevent aggression, and allow enough time to complete tasks help improve mental health. In fact, system-level changes appear to be more effective at reducing stress and ultimately retaining employees than identifying signs of stress in employees or placing the burden on individuals to seek help and manage their own stress, the authors write in the report.

"The health of our patients and our country depends on more doctors seeking help for their mental health and well-being before giving up drugs altogether."

Managers also need to take better responsibility for the needs of employees, Dr. Casey Chosewood, director of CDC's Office of General Occupational Health. He emphasized the need for flexibility on the part of managers, training to recognize psychological stress, and encouraging employees to take time to go beyond sustainability and create systemic change.

Stigma continues to be a major barrier between health care providers and the mental or behavioral health services they need, Houry said. These barriers come in the form of stigmatizing language when someone applies for a driver's license or medical certificate and is asked about their mental health or substance use. The CDC report recommends that companies reduce this stigma by "eliminating intrusive questions about credentials."

"Treating burnout, mental illness, or substance use disorders is a sign of strength, an act that takes courage and deserves the unconditional support of our health care system," Ehrenfeld said. "The health of our patients and our country depends on more doctors seeking help for their mental health and well-being before giving up drugs altogether."

Dealing with frontline NHS staff burnout during COVID-19 | Dr. Mike Scanlan, Mind Time Therapy