This is the healthcare delivery providers part of the Healthcare Marketplace Specialization. This is module 1.3.6, Healthcare Worker Satisfaction. The learning outcomes of this lecture are, we will look at, what is healthcare worker engagement and satisfaction? And then the impact of staff engagement on the triple aim or the value equation we have been discussing. I have discussed in the overview, here is the IHI triple aim, the triangle. And then as important, fourth, or the quadruple aim, of the caring for the caregiver. The healthcare employee or the healthcare staff. The physician, the nurse, the volunteer, that surround the patient and the family in taking care of them is as important. And that is what we will discuss in this lecture. Many studies are emerging and are showing conclusively that workforce satisfaction of the healthcare employees, or the healthcare workers, in various settings of care, is linked, in fact, to clinical quality metrics for the patients and populations. Is linked, of course, to the productivity of the employees in the workforce. Is also linked to the satisfaction and engagement of patients and families with the healthcare providers and delivery system. And is overall linked to the cost of care for, not just individual patients, but also entire populations. As human resource evidences show, workforce satisfaction does have everything to do with personal happiness and also the length of stay the worker will stay with their current job. Here is a roadmap that is emerging in many institutions to look at provider and staff resilience or engagement or satisfaction. And also to look at the rate of burnout or distress that might be occurring as a result of the multiple factors that we have been discussing. So the change that is happening in the healthcare delivery system. The number of regulatory changes and burdens. The electronic health record. The hours. Sometimes the generational issues come into play. And many other factors are leading to burnout. So, a typical way that an organization would start looking at burnout in order to reduce it would be to perform some kind of a staff survey. So this might be done annually. And electronically submitted to the staff like physicians, nurses, and other employees or providers. Based upon the survey and as compared to benchmarks, hot spots are identified in departments or providers that might be having distress. And then specific countermeasures, tactics, or action plans that develop to help with the burnout or distress. And then a resurvey process to monitor if the burnout is going down and the provider or the staff engagements and satisfaction is going up. So, again, a lot of this is coming from human resources philosophy and evidences. But the point of this was to make sure that you understand that burnout is becoming quite a problem in many clinical and staff spheres in healthcare. And that particular quadruple aim needs to be taken into consideration as the healthcare delivery system continues to transform. Spend a couple of seconds on the unique issue of physician burnout. Some recent studies are showing that the level of physician burnout is getting close to, or sometimes exceeding 50% of all physicians. And that's quite a large number as you can imagine. And there are many unique causes for physician burnout. For example, the electronic health record. For example, the unique needs of aging physicians. For example, the regulatory and quality measurement burdens, and many others. So, again, I wanted you to know that the physician burnout is an emerging issue that is being looked at and various action plans developed across states and across the nation. In summary, healthcare workforce engagement and satisfaction is key in achieving the triple aim. And we've actually used the healthcare engagement as a fourth quadruple aim. And then burnout in certain clinical professions, such as physicians, is at a significant and high level. And that is being actively looked at across the nation.
