How Healthcare Worker Well-Being Intersects with Safety Culture, Workforce Engagement, and Operational Outcomes

Burned out healthcare workers (HCWs) are more likely to make errors, provide poor quality of care, lack work-place engagement, and ultimately leave their jobs. The research is clear: the prevalence, severity and consequential nature of HCW burnout puts institutions at risk for costly patient safety issues and turnover. The need for evidence-based approaches to this large and growing problem is urgent, and many leaders are asking, “What can healthcare institutions and individual healthcare workers do to reduce burnout and improve well-being?” Across our research we have identified how HCW burnout intersects with safety culture, errors, engagement, and operational outcomes. We have also identified evidence-based institutional programs and initiatives as well as brief individual interventions (many at low/no cost) that improve burnout in the short and long term. Across all of the interventions we have found a key factor that appears to underlie the benefits that each intervention confers.