“Confronting the long-standing drivers of burnout among our health workers must be a top national priority,” Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., M.B.A. said in an advisory published Monday.
Health workers, including physicians, nurses, community and public health workers and nurse aides, among others, have long faced systemic challenges in the healthcare system even before the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to crisis levels of burnout, he said.
The Surgeon General’s Advisory Addressing Health Worker Burnout lays out recommendations that all of society can take to address the factors underpinning burnout, improve health worker well-being, and strengthen the nation’s public health infrastructure, according to a press release from the surgeon general.
More than half a million registered nurses are expected to retire by the end of the year, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 1.1 million new registered nurses will be needed across the country, according to the advisory. Further, according to the document, the country faces a shortage within five years of more than 3 million low-wage health workers, who consist predominantly of women of color and are caregivers within the community, in nursing homes and in other healthcare settings.
“As we transition towards recovery, we have a moral obligation to address the long-standing crisis of burnout, exhaustion and moral distress across the health community,” Murthy wrote. “We owe health workers far more than our gratitude. We owe them an urgent debt of action.”
Some solutions from the surgeon general’s advisory:
- Protect the health, safety and well-being of all health workers.
- Eliminate punitive policies for seeking mental health and substance use care.
- Reduce administrative and other workplace burdens to help health workers make time for what matters.
- Transform organizational cultures to prioritize health worker well-being and show all health workers that they are valued.
- Recognize social connection and community as a core value of the healthcare system.
- Invest in public health and the U.S. public health workforce.
The surgeon general, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, visited Childrens’ National Hospital in Northwest Washington, D.C., Monday to spread the message about healthcare worker burnout more than two years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The administration is calling for new investments and steps to protect the mental well-being of healthcare workers, including by expanding counseling offerings, reducing administrative burdens and promoting worker safety on the job,” the Associated Press reported.
