CDC releases guide to improve professional wellbeing among health care workers

Photo: Thirawatana/Adobe Stock

Burnout in the veterinary profession is a serious issue, with approximately 1 in 3 veterinary professionals having thought about leaving the field due to burnout and poor mental health.¹ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) along with the Dr Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation—an organization focused on reducing burnout among health care professionals—developed a guide to help hospital leaders make changes to improve professional wellbeing.²

The guide, titled the ‘Impact Wellbeing Guide: Taking Action to Improve Healthcare Worker Wellbeing,’ contains 6 actions hospital leaders and executives can take to improve the professional wellbeing of health care workers and hospital operations. For each action, the CDC includes the action’s purpose, key concept, and resources for hospital leaders to download, including charts, worksheets, outlines, sample emails, and more.²

The following are the 6 actions, which are evidence-based, according to the CDC^2,3:

• Conduct a review of the hospital’s operations to determine how they support professional wellbeing.
• Build a dedicated team to support professional wellbeing.
• Break down barriers to seeking help, such as updating and removing intrusive mental health questions on credentialing applications and offering confidential mental health support options.
• Develop a suite of communication tools that share updates with employees about the hospital’s journey to improve professional wellbeing.
• Integrate professional wellbeing measures into an existing quality improvement project.
• Create a 12-month plan to continue to move the professional wellbeing work forward.

“NIOSH’s Impact Wellbeing Guide provides action steps for identifying and addressing operational-level improvements needed to support long-lasting solutions and professional wellbeing for every member of the health care team,” Jen Brandt, PhD, director of member wellbeing and diversity initiatives at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), said in a news report.³

According to the CDC, the most effective approach to reducing burnout and supporting health care workers’ wellbeing is addressing workplace policies and practices.³ “Traditional approaches for addressing workplace stress, burnout, and wellbeing have often focused on personal responsibility and individual level interventions e.g., practice better self-care, increase your resilience, take a yoga class,” Brandt continued. “Seldom do individual-level approaches address root causes to workplace wellbeing challenges.”

The guide was in released in March and tested by hospital leaders from 6 United States hospitals. Moreover, it was developed with input from professional organizations, academic institutions, unions, and federal agencies, according to the AVMA.³

The guide complements NIOSH’s Impact Wellbeing campaign, which emphasizes primary prevention in hospital environments, aiming to address issues before they lead to poor mental health outcomes. As part of their campaign, the CDC led 2 phases of formative data collection from health care workers' and leaders' attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, experiences, and needs around professional wellbeing. Findings revealed that⁴:

• Existing efforts to reduce health care worker burnout often placed responsibility on the health care worker to take action.
• Health care workers do not want efforts to focus on individual resilience. Instead, they need hospital leaders to address the systemic factors at the root of staff burnout such as adequate staffing, demanding work schedules, excess administrative work, and more.
• Both audiences want to feel understood by one another. They also agree that improving health care worker wellbeing requires a hospital-specific and leadership-led approach.
• Hospital leaders need actionable guidance on how they can address wellbeing at their own hospital.

References

1. Littrell A. New partnership aims to address veterinary burnout. dvm360. August 26, 2024. Accessed September 3, 2024. https://www.dvm360.com/view/new-partnership-aims-to-address-veterinary-burnout
2. Impact Wellbeing Guide. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed September 3, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/healthcare/impactwellbeingguide/index.html
3. Lederhouse C. NIOSH develops wellbeing guide to address health care worker burnout. American Veterinary Medical Association. August 27, 2024. Accessed September 3, 2024. https://www.avma.org/news/niosh-develops-wellbeing-guide-address-health-care-worker-burnout?utm_source=delivra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=todays-headlines-news
4. Campaign insights. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed September 3, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/healthcare/impactwellbeing/campaign-insights.html