Culture is one of the most important tenants of patient safety. Health care entities are adopting many strategies to improve their culture of safety. One aspect of patient safety culture that rarely gets attention is creating a culture of self-care for staff, especially front-line staff that are in constant caring mode with patients and family, often facing “crisis” after “crisis”.
These are startling statistics.
These levels of burnout are not sustainable. According to ARHQ “Although it is difficult to determine causal relationships, burnout has been associated with increased patient safety incidents, including medical errors, reduced patient satisfaction, and poorer safety and quality ratings.”
In recent years healthcare organizations have begun to realize the high price they pay for employee burn out and compassion fatigue and are making efforts to address this issue. In fact, IHI and other organizations recognize burnout of health care staff could in fact prevent the achievement of the initial Triple Aim of improved patient experience, population health and reduced cost and are recommending that the Triple AIM framework be expanded to include a fourth aim that focuses on the work life of staff and physicians.
As a quick review, Christine Maslach defines compassion fatigue as “a state of exhaustion in which one is cynical about the value of one’s occupation and doubtful of one’s capacity to perform”. It is frequently refer it to as a secondary trauma because it relates to exposure to suffering. Burnout on the other hand, is defined by the World Health Organization as a “syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”
Unfortunately one of the biggest obstacles in combating or preventing burnout is that many feel ashamed to need help. This feeling of shame is compounded by a culture (both societal and organizational) that doesn’t support slowing down or self-care.
CPS has created a series of videos to help organizations and individual health care workers to learn techniques to support self-care, create mindfulness and reduce stress. If your organization is interested in learning more about how you can support your staff in making self-care a priority, please contact info@centerforpatientsafety.org or visit our MemberClicks site to access a CPS annual subscription that includes access to the Self-Care Session videos.