Tip #3: Evaluate the impact of the program
You’ve got the baseline data, you’ve implemented the AMA’s Steps Forward program, now how are you doing? Tip #3 is, evaluate how these different initiatives are affecting physicians and staff members.
Even the process of setting up and conducting monthly or quarterly meetings on the subject of physician and staff burnout for the purpose of walking through the surveys and other information coming from the AMA programs will have an effect on any institution’s level of stress, anxiety and, yes, burnout.
Tip #4: Work with your state medical society
According to Dr. Sinsky, the AMA’s Practice Transformation Initiative, which includes many state medical societies is a great resource for hospitals and clinics.
“The AMA’s newest program, the Practice Transformation Initiative, involves the Physicians Foundation and several state medical societies, the role of the latter being to recruit health systems and practices to participate in order to field test various burnout reduction initiatives and derive evidence-based research which can then inform our efforts to improve physician care.”
Tip $5: Don’t blame the doctor
This is probably the most important tip of all. And this applies to BOTH the hospital or clinic and the physicians themselves.
In reality, as Dr. Sinsky states, “Approximately 80% of burnout among physicians is driven by systems factors, while only 20% is driven by individual factors.”
As a result, any program that is trying to reduce burnout must, according to Dr. Sinsky, “focus on external factors such as reducing the administrative burden and working with health systems to create the conditions where joy, purpose and meaning in work are possible for physicians and other health professionals.”
“When an organization begins its interventions by addressing individual factors it risks saying to physicians that they are the problem. Thus, as much as I endorse yoga, meditation, etc., I don’t think that is where an organization should begin their anti-burnout efforts. Instead, organizations can begin by addressing the numerous ways to improve workflow, EHR [electronic health records] time, and teamwork so that doctors can spend the majority of the day on work for which they are uniquely trained.”
