We are in the middle of a healthcare burnout epidemic. Over 60% of nurses report burnout, leading to massive attrition rates. This is not sustainable, but what can be done?
In this blog post, we will explore the causes of healthcare burnout and ways to prevent it. We will also discuss how technology can help us track employee health and improve workplace conditions.
What is causing healthcare burnout?
There are many factors that contribute to healthcare burnout. The pandemic has pushed healthcare workers over the edge, and though we saw massive amounts of new technology being introduced at this time, this influx of data and tools probably exacerbated the issue of information overload and lack of training. Moreover, hospitals are understaffed and overworked, which leads to long hours and little rest. Compounding these issues is the fact that there are not great tools to track employee health, so organizations don’t fully understand the weight of the problem. While many companies have tried to find a solution through practices like employee surveys, this simply is not enough. We need consistent, reliable, data-driven, and objective mechanisms to track employees’ health.
Technology is offering new solutions.
It’s time that technology companies not just focus on clinical decision-making tools and electronic health records with fancy software features, but rather come up with tools that fix the most important factor for success: the people on the front-lines — nurses, doctors, assistants, and other employees. With copious data flowing into the hospital every minute, there must be objective ways to measure the workload and stress level of an employee. This would help organizations identify who is at risk for burnout and make necessary changes to improve workplace conditions. Reducing burnout will improve provider satisfaction, patient outcomes, and hospital return on investment.
Technology can help us track employee health and improve workplace conditions, but only if it is used correctly. The first step is to gather reliable data on employee health. Once we have this data, we can start to look for trends and correlations. For example, we might notice that employees who work night shifts are more likely to experience burnout. We may see that one clinician is struggling to complete duties in a timely manner, or is taking more breaks. By tracking this data over time, we can start to see which interventions are working to improve employee health and which are not. Having actionable, objective data can help us establish a benchmark for the current state of employees, create better strategies for improvement, and set realistic targets to work towards.
Having a concrete metric to evaluate burnout and stress rates is key to developing any improvement plan. With all of the data flowing into the hospital, we can create an objective measure of employee well-being to identify individuals that are struggling. Technology can help us do this, but only if it is used correctly. We need to gather reliable data on employee health, look for trends and correlations, and create better communication channels between employees and management. Only then can we start to make a difference in the fight against healthcare burnout.
While technology companies are making strides in the standard of care, clinical decision-making and the patient experience, the focus on employee health and well-being has been neglected. Not only is it difficult to gather the right data, its unclear which data to collect and how to analyze it. Luckily, this is where we come in. CalmWave applies machine learning algorithms that use the data in your hospital to not only identify trends and predictions for patients, but also for practitioners. With expertise in both AI and healthcare, we are applying our unique skill set to try to improve the experience for both the patient and the clinician, helping to make a difference in the fight against healthcare burnout. To learn more about how we’re doing this, schedule a demo with one of our experts.