Joy In Medical Practice: Clinician Satisfaction In The Healthy Work Place Trial

To better understand how clinicians' job satisfaction relates to work conditions and outcomes for clinicians and patients, we examined data from the Healthy Work Place trial. Data were collected from physicians and advanced practice providers at baseline and approximately one year later. At baseline, 74 percent of respondents indicated job satisfaction. Satisfaction was associated with less chaos, more cohesion, better communication, and closer values alignment at work, but not with higher-quality care or fewer medical errors. At follow-up, the respondents with satisfaction data then and at baseline who indicated increased satisfaction (16 percent of these respondents) were almost three times more likely to report improved burnout scores and over eight times as likely to indicate reduced intention to leave their practices, compared to the clinicians whose satisfaction did not increase. These findings confirm that clinicians' job satisfaction is related to remediable work conditions and suggest that it may be an important metric for clinical practices and practice organizations.