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Leveraging Locum Tenens to Reduce Staff Burnout

The fast-paced, high-pressure culture of medicine makes physician burnout a constant hazard at healthcare facilities across the country. While most healthcare administrators recognize that the threat of workplace exhaustion is real, many don't fully understand the severity of the problem. The 2018 Survey of America’s Physicians: Practice Patterns and Perspectives, released by Merritt Hawkins on behalf of The Physicians Foundation, revealed that despite an evolving work model, many clinicians continue to struggle with professional fatigue on various levels. Some key findings of those polled include:

  •       78 percent sometimes, often, or always experience feelings of burnout
  •       80 percent of physicians are at full capacity or are overextended
  •       55 percent describe their morale as somewhat or very negative

Additionally, the report showed that 46 percent of participants plan on changing career paths and almost half (49 percent) would not recommend medicine as a career option to their own families.

Impact of Burnout Extends Beyond Physicians

When unmanaged, unrelenting workplace stress can have a profoundly negative influence on a doctor's physical and mental health profiles, resulting in chronic fatigue and a possible loss of empathy toward both patients and colleagues. Unfortunately, the impact of a stressed and overworked staff doesn't just affect the clinicians at a practice. A tense medical facility work environment can eventually have a direct and potentially significant impact on the quality of care administered, overall patient experience, and even the organization's revenues and bottom-line profits.

The negative consequences of physician fatigue have triggered significant concern throughout the healthcare community as providers scramble to assist their practitioners to better manage the seemingly insurmountable stress and pressure found in their work environment. As a result, healthcare enterprises of every size and within every specialty, are strategically leveraging Locum Tenens physicians to augment existing medical personnel as a means to minimize the strain on their overworked staff members.

How Locum Tenens Staffing Reduces Professional Fatigue with Your Staff

Partnering with a professional provider of locum tenens solutions delivers several critical benefits in the battle against physician overextension. Perhaps the most significant way medical staffing can help lower overall stress and tension at healthcare facilities is by reducing the organization's workload burden. The 2018 Medscape National Physician Burnout & Depression Report revealed that physicians struggling with work-related exhaustion identified two primary causes for their burnout. A total of 56 percent of those surveyed pinpointed too many bureaucratic tasks, such as paperwork and charting, as the main factor causing their condition, while 39 percent of physicians polled pointed at spending too many hours at work as the reason they felt a decline in their overall mental and emotional health status.

Locum Tenens staffing can help decrease the stress that often accompanies both the long hours and paperwork found in virtually any healthcare environment. A qualified and experienced Locum Tenens doctor quickly adapts to your organization's professional culture to help reduce the total number of hours existing staff members are expected to work, instantly granting your current personnel access to much-needed downtime. Additionally, Locum Tenens clinicians not only have training in the latest care practices, treatments, and therapies; they are also well-versed in documentation policies and protocol to alleviate the paperwork burden among your facility's doctors.

Most importantly, utilizing Locum Tenens physicians within your medical environment demonstrates that your facility prioritizes the holistic wellness of its employees. Incorporating this medical staffing practice as part of your organization's culture not only helps your team manage workplace stress and tension; it can also reinforce the belief that they are valued contributors. As a result, the use of healthcare staffing services may even help reduce the risk of staff turnover due to burnout as well as increase retention of current full-time physicians.

LT Partners collaborates with healthcare enterprises of every size and scope to create customized medical staffing solutions that drive practice results. Contact us today to speak with one of our experienced team members and learn more.

 

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