Managing clinician burnout: Challenges and opportunities

hysicians have some of the highest rates of burnout among all professions. 1Complicating matters is that clinicians (including residents) 2 may avoid seeking treatment out of fear it will affect their license or privileges. 3In this article, we consider burnout in greater detail, as well as ways of successfully addressing the level of burnout in the profession (FIGURE 1), including steps individual practitioners, health care entities, and regulators should consider to reduce burnout and its harmful effects. How burnout becomes a problemSix general factors are commonly identified as leading to clinician career dissatisfaction and burnout: 4 1. work overload 2. lack of autonomy and control 3. inadequate rewards, financial and otherwise 4. work-home schedules 5. perception of lack of fairness 6. values conflict between the clinician and employer (including a breakdown of professional community).At the top of the list of causes of burnout is often "administrative and bureaucratic headaches." 5More specifically, electronic health records (EHRs), including computerized order entry, is commonly cited as a major cause of burnout. 6,7According to some studies, clinicians spend as much as 49% of working time doing clerical work, 8 and studies found the extension of work into home life. 9ncreased measurement of performance metrics in health care services are a significant contributor to physician burnout. 10These