​Leadership in healthcare organizations must embrace their role in preventing physician burnout, say the chief executive officers (CEOs) of 10 healthcare organizations in a March 28, 2017, blog post at Health Affairs. A high level of burnout should be treated as an early warning sign of dysfunction in a healthcare system, the authors said, as well as an indicator of underlying issues. CEOs should be held accountable to implement approaches that can reduce burnout, the authors said, noting a 2015 study that said each one-point increase in the leadership score of a physician's immediate supervisor decreases the odds of physician burnout by 3.3%. After meeting to discuss the issue at the American Medical Association's headquarters in September 2016, the CEOs issued a call to action to address physician burnout and laid out 11 commitments leadership should make. Included among the commitments is to regularly measure the well-being of physicians using several benchmarked instruments, include measures of physician well-being on national metrics, and evaluate the costs and burdens of physician turnover and early retirement. Leadership should also support team-based models of care and support research to understand the ways in which increased burden on individuals is leading to burnout, the authors said.

HRC Recommends: Employ a systems approach to mitigating burnout. It is important to gauge the level of burnout of the physicians working in your organization. Consider assessing physician burnout by conducting a short, anonymous survey of both the level of burnout and the underlying causes to help identify effective interventions. Involve staff in organizational changes from the planning stage.