Help Us Help You: Engaging Emergency Physicians to Identify Organizational Strategies to Reduce Burnout

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Occupational Health
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• Physician burnout poses a significant risk to patient care and career longevity in emergency medicine.
• A quality improvement (QI) initiative was developed to address burnout among emergency department (ED) faculty.
• The goal was to identify burnout sources and create interventions to improve the work environment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and implement a QI process for ED faculty to identify burnout sources.
• To generate targeted interventions for improving the ED work environment and physician well-being.
• To assess the effectiveness of the Maslach-Leiter framework in identifying organizational burnout factors.

Main Methods:

• A prospective interventional study surveyed 60 ED faculty using the Professional Fulfilment Index (PFI) and burnout-related questions.
• The Maslach-Leiter framework and American Medical Association's Mini-Z survey were used to identify organizational sources of burnout.
• A facilitated session involved sharing survey results and developing a rank-ordered list of interventions based on the six Maslach-Leiter domains.

Main Results:

• 78.3% of faculty completed the survey, and 30% reported moderate to severe burnout.
• Burnout scores significantly correlated with responses to the Maslach-Leiter organizational burnout domains (P <0.001).
• 31 potential interventions were generated, focusing on reducing documentation, increasing positive feedback, improving consults, decreasing crowding, and enhancing social connection.

Conclusions:

• The Maslach-Leiter framework and facilitated discussion effectively created a departmental agenda for improving professional fulfillment and reducing burnout.
• This process can be adopted by healthcare organizations to engage physicians in improving work experiences.
• Enhancing physician well-being through organizational solutions is likely to improve the quality of patient care.