7 ways to beat physician burnout by rebuilding relationships
American Medical Association
The AMA promotes the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.
Too much of health care delivery has become a check-the-box exercise. Find out how building around relationships boosts well-being—and patient outcomes.
By: Sara Berg, MS, AMA News Editor
In too many settings, health care delivery has evolved into a series of disconnected transactions, based on the mistaken notion that anybody will do, according to Christine Sinsky, MD, the AMA’s vice president of professional satisfaction.
The notion is that any physician can round on the patient in the hospital, or any clinician can be on the other side of the telemedicine screen. It’s about check boxes and bullet points, and it’s all in the EHR.
“Relationships are our superpower,” says Christine Sinsky, MD, the AMA’s VP of professional satisfaction.
But health care, Dr. Sinsky said during her keynote address at the 2023 American Conference on Physician Health, is relational, and accordingly it must be oriented around relationships.
“Connections with our teams, with our colleagues, and with our patients … can be considered the secret sauce, the hidden architecture within the health care system,” Dr. Sinsky said during the conference, held in Palm Desert, California, and co-sponsored by Stanford Medicine, the AMA and Mayo Clinic.
“If we bring the value of connections out into the open, and we intentionally strengthen this key backbone of our health care system … we will be more likely to achieve the quadruple aim outcomes of better care for individuals, better health for the population at a cost we can afford while preserving professional well-being,” Dr. Sinsky said. “These connections—they're a source of individual resilience. And even more importantly, connections are a source of system resilience. So, the more our system is strong through all these connections, the better able the system is to support and serve the people within.”
“Relationships are our superpower. Relationships are how we will increase efficiency and increase our capacity, decrease the total amount of work to be done and increase continuity,” she said, noting “that continuity between physicians and their teams and their patients … is associated with better outcomes, higher quality care, lower cost, fewer ER visits, fewer hospitalizations and even lower rates of mortality.”
Additionally, “when the same people are working together in the emergency room,” operating room or ambulatory clinic, then “costs are lower, quality is better, and burnout is less,” Dr. Sinsky said.
Here are some system-level approaches for prioritizing relationships to reduce physician burnout and improve well-being and quality care.
Learn more about each of these approaches in detail by reading the full article here.
Physician burnout demands urgent action
Reducing burnout is essential to high-quality patient care and a sustainable health system. The AMA measures and responds to physician burnout, helping drive solutions and interventions.
Become a member and help the AMA tackle the key causes and provide relief for physicians. Join now.
AMA Recovery Plan for America's Physicians
Learn more about the work the AMA is doing to address physician burnout.
Where Clinical Mastery Meets Aesthetic Artistry
1yHire PAs, that’ll help reduce the MDs workload (reduce burn out) and working together will keep the quality care high. PAs have been and always will be an asset to your practice.
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1yThe Academy of Communication in Healthcare check out this latest AMA report focused on the power of relationships! 🙌
Ambulatory Care Clinical Pharmacist
1yAmerican Medical Association Can we pharmacists help you with physician burnout? If you give us support for being recognized as Medicare Part B providers we would be happy to help you prescribe DME! Isn’t it annoying when the pharmacist has to call you because you forgot to prescribe pen needles with the insulin you prescribed? Or your patient taking 5 injections of insulin, isn’t testing their blood glucose because they forgot to tell you that they ran out of test strip refills? If pharmacists were recognized as providers by Medicare Part B then we could prescribe these supplies to your patients and wouldn’t have to bother you with our calls and faxes. We get in depth training on how to use DME supplies in pharmacy school. How much education of DME do you get in medical school? Did you take a class to learn how to use nebulizer machines for your asthma and COPD patients? We did!!
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1yrelationship is a bridging mediator where the powers are shared to exchange and strengths are gained.
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1yPhysician burnout can have a significant impact on recruitment and retention. By understanding and implementing the strategies mentioned, we can better support our physicians and enhance job satisfaction.