Physician Burnout and Occupational Stress: An inconvenient truth with unintended consequences

Abstract

Healthcare providers and staff are the proximal source of quality of care provided to patients. Today’s world of health carereform and other value-based initiatives have added new levels of significant complexity to health care delivery. This cumulativechronic high-level stress is imposed by multiple regulatory, insurance, federal, and state forces that do not coordinate well withone another resulting in disparate, conflictual, or confusing mandates. Each have authoritative capital. Together they havepotential to affect healthcare workers on a personal, physical, emotional and cognitive level which in turn adversely affects carerelationships and quality of patient care. We need to be concerned about the effect that this enormous occupational stress hason them as individuals and how it impacts the care provided. Physician shortages exist and are projected to get worse. There isa high burnout rate in current physicians. Some are retiring early, leaving medicine, or worse dying of suicide from job relatedstress. Mechanisms of this negative effect of stress and Burnout on providers, institutions and healthcare quality are discussed.The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of current state of knowledge merging information from various fields on thisissue. Areas that require action are identified and possible solutions are offered.