Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout : A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being

Patient-centered, high-quality health care relies on the well-being, health, and safety of health care clinicians.

However, alarmingly high rates of clinician burnout in the United States are detrimental to the quality of care being provided, harmful to individuals in the workforce, and costly.

It is important to take a systemic approach to address burnout that focuses on the structure, organization, and culture of health care. Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being builds upon two groundbreaking reports from the past twenty years, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, which both called attention to the issues around patient safety and quality of care.

This report explores the extent, consequences, and contributing factors of clinician burnout and provides a framework for a systems approach to clinician burnout and professional well-being, a research agenda to advance clinician well-being, and recommendations for the field. Table of ContentsFront MatterSummary1 Introduction2 A Framework for a Systems Approach to Clinician Burnout andProfessional Well-Being3 Extent and Consequences of Clinician Burnout4 Factors Contributing to Clinician Burnout and ProfessionalWell-Being5 Healthy and Safe Health Care Organizations6 The Influence of the External Environment on Clinician Burnoutand Professional Well-Being7 Health Information Technology8 Student and Trainee Burnout and Professional Well-Being9 A Research Agenda to Advance Clinician Professional Well-Being10 Conclusions and RecommendationsAppendix A: Committee and Staff BiographiesAppendix B: Medicare Program, The Joint Commission, andInternational Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, ClinicalDocumentation and Coding Requirements