JAMA Health Forum. 2022;doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2022.2299
US Surgeon General Sounds Alarm on Health Worker Burnout
Health workers are experiencing burnout that exceeds even the “crisis levels.”
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After more than 2 years of working through the COVID-19 pandemic, in a time of multiple waves of infections and more than 1 million US deaths, US physicians, nurses, and other health workers are experiencing burnout that exceeds even the “crisis levels” present before the pandemic, warns a new advisory from the US Surgeon General’s office.
The advisory notes that in addition to burnout’s effects on health workers themselves—including physical and mental consequences associated with chronic work-related stress, such as emotional exhaustion, sleep disruptions and insomnia, anxiety, depression, and other problems—burnout poses a threat to the nation’s public health infrastructure, driving many workers to retire earlier than they had planned or shift to other types of work.
The National Academy of Medicine has released a new report, the National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being, to “help shift US health care from the current reality of a workforce shortage and burnout crisis to a future where every health care worker is able to experience joy in their workplace and knows that they are valued.”
Published: June 7, 2022. doi: 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2022.2299