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Sharing Your Perspective on Healthcare Burnout

1. Create a post that describes what you believe causes burnout in healthcare

2. In your reflection, consider:

Personal experiences or observations

Systemic factors

Workplace dynamics

Patient care challenges

3. Add one visual element to support your reflection (optional):

A drawing that represents your feelings

A relevant video

An AI-generated image that symbolizes burnout

Your honest insights will help foster meaningful discussion about this important topic.

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Burnout can happen from a wide variety of situations and causes. Especially when talking about healthcare there is higher chances of burnout. I believe burnout can look like increased irritation, insomnia, lack of appetite, and feeling of hopelessness. My personal experiance happened when I was a respiratory therapy student doing clinicals during covid. I was at Toledo Promedica Hospital and was very excited to be in my second to last semester of school. Little did I know my world was going to be turned upside down in a matter of months. Covid started as a distant rumor and random changes to the policys we followed in the emergancy department. At first I didn't think much of it past a bad bug going around to a wide variety of patients I helped treat. It began to be more overwhelming as my outside world began to change. The world began to shut down as people grew scared and patients became more sick. No one knew what was going to continue to change. Even through I was a student my clnical days began to be much busier. I was in the neuro ICU which was soon transformed to partial covid ICU. The career I fell in love with soon became a different world filled with everyday sadness and loneliness. I watched as patients grew more sick as the hours went by without family able to see them. Some patients were eventully able to have family but sometimes that meant no one thought they would make it. Working in this enviroment while still in school was challenging prior to covid but during made it that much worse. I still loved being in healthcare but days got longer and the outside world shutdown. The hobbies to relax and clear my head began harder to do because of closed businesses. Lot of my friends did not want to hang out a lot because I was almost constantly exposed to covid. The ever changing world made it very hard to stay positive and effective in my studies. I remeber odd changes the hospital made such as us reusing our N-95 masks and storing them in paper bags. Normal masks and patient care machines and other care items seemed to become low constantly. Patient care challeneges were emotionally taxing as well as increasingly complicated as more patients were admitted. Burnout is a very real thing that can sneak up on people without realizing it. I noticed my health started to decline and I suddendly did not enjoy doing my usual hobbies. The workplace dynamic was strange to say the least we were thanked with pizza parties and candels. While yes I love both items it did not take away from the short staffing and increased patient loads. Dynamics for patient safety chaged dramtically as well. Watching other techs and nurses walk into multiple rooms with the same gloves on stunned me. Finding new hobbies during covid helped me feel more like me and have converstations. Having hard converstaions is critical when feeling like stress is building.

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Chronic stress at work can lead to burnout in healthcare workers. It's characterized by a feeling of depersonalization and emotional exhaustion, and it can make employees feel less accomplished at work. This can result in reduced performance and negatively affect the well-being of the individuals who work in healthcare establishments.

I currently work at the hospital as an Advance Nursing Assistant or an ADNA in the float pool. As an ADNA you provide essential hands-on care to patients, primarily assisting with activities of daily living (ADLs) and basic medical tasks under the supervision of registered nurses or licensed practical nurses. ADNA's duties include helping patients with personal hygiene, mobility, feeding, and monitoring vital signs. Depending on what unit I am being floated on it can become very hard to not be burned out. Specifically, the step down units and the med surg units. Sometimes those units will have over 15 patients and you'll be the only aid or HUC/aid there when there is supposed to be two. A lot of the nurses on some of those units are very lazy and at work for the wrong reasons. They don't answer call lights for their patients or attend to any of their needs if it doesn't have anything to do with passing meds. There has been times I have been busy and running around an entire unit from 11am-11 pm. I'd literally sit down for a second and then they would ask me to do simple tasks that they could have done like, get a patient a glass of water after they have walked passed the patients kitchen area. That is really frustrating sometimes and it can become overwhelming. There's also been times where some nurses have seen me running around the unit like a chicken with my head cut off and they'll ask if I am busy. I would tell them yes, and then they will just add to the list of things that I already have to do instead of just doing it themselves. Or, they'll try to stop me from doing what I am doing to accommodate them when they can simply just do it themselves. What I've learned from working in healthcare for a while is that it is okay to tell nurses no if you are busy doing a bunch of tasks and you are busy. If you continuously tell them yes, they will take you for granted and run you ragged and that isn't okay if they are completely capable of doing those tasks themselves.

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I think there are a multitude of reasons for why there is burnout in healthcare. It can be a thankless job a lot of the time, also can be stressful in many situations. During surgery, not having the correct instruments, or the instrument is ‘not the right one’ and the surgeon is throwing a tantrum over it like that’ll help with the vibe in the room. In my own experiences, I can get extremely burnt out by wanting to help everyone, leading to not caring about my wellbeing and basically killing myself to help others around me. It’s really hard for me to take breaks, worry about how things will affect me, and to put myself first a lot of the time. With my job being in SPD at Toledo Hospital, it can sometimes feel like we’re being rushed when the one instrument is needed and is in the sterilizer. I’m mostly in sterile supplies at Toledo, so I usually am stressed out about the state that is the supply room and if the add-ons are filled properly. Communication is something that can be severely lacking, which makes me overthink a lot. Not knowing where to bring the supplies on a Class 1 add-on is very stressful, as there are 22 ORs available and no one tells anyone where things are going to be. When things start getting chaotic, I tend to shut down, which for me is blocking everything else out and just doing the task until everything is complete. I ignore my needs and I even just work through when my supposed break was going to happen in order to get everything done. I’ve always done this, having the need to put all of my focus and energy into completing what is required. It doesn’t coincide well that I tend to procrastinate and when it gets to that deadline I just put all of my focus into getting it done. It gets really exhausting to the point that I can just start feeling overwhelmed and nothing at the same time. Most of the time I end up just feeling empty, and that can be a very scary feeling for someone who feels everything too much.

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Healthcare burnout is a growing crisis shaped by societal, cultural, structural, and organizational factors. It is characterized by chronic stress leading to emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a diminished sense of personal achievement. These symptoms often result in reduced empathy, detachment from work, and overall disengagement.

Excessive Workload and Hours: Long hours, high patient loads, irregular shifts, and inadequate breaks contribute heavily to physical and mental fatigue.

Emotional and Psychological Stress: Continuous exposure to trauma, death, and emotionally charged situations, combined with high-stakes decision-making, can be deeply distressing. Moral injury from systemic failings and ethical conflicts further compounds this stress.

Lack of Autonomy: Limited control over schedules, workflow, and decision-making—often driven by administrative or financial priorities—undermines job satisfaction.

Staffing Shortages: Ongoing workforce shortages increase pressure on current staff, intensifying stress and perpetuating a burnout-turnover cycle.

Toxic Work Environments: Unsupportive cultures, strained relationships, and experiences of bias, racism, or discrimination contribute to unhealthy workplaces.

Personal Sacrifice: Healthcare workers often neglect their own needs while prioritizing others’, which, in the absence of strong support systems, can delay seeking help and worsen outcomes.

Impact of Burnout:

On Individuals: Burnout may lead to social withdrawal, feelings of isolation, depression, substance misuse, and, in severe cases, suicidal ideation.

On Organizations and Systems: It contributes to higher turnover, decreased quality of care, lower patient satisfaction, compromised safety, and increased healthcare costs. Burnout also weakens the system’s resilience in times of crisis, such as public health emergencies.

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Healthcare burnout, also known as health worker burnout, remains a pressing challenge for healthcare systems. Burnout among healthcare workers peaked in late 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic when more than 60% of clinicians reported symptoms of burnout. This rise in clinician burnout also coincided with over 40% of clinicians reporting intent to leave their organizations or healthcare altogether.

Who is impacted by healthcare burnout?

Burnout impacts everyone in the healthcare matrix, not just clinicians. Its effects are far-reaching and threaten all aspects of healthcare from patient quality to organizational solvency . Here's how it can a ffect clinicians, patients and health systems.

How burnout impacts clinicians

According to Medscape's 2023 report, over 50% of physicians currently report that they are burned out . Nurses are right there with them. According to a May survey conducted by the American Nurses Foundation, 56% of nurses are experiencing burnout, while 64% say they feel "a great deal of stress because of their job."

How burnout impacts health systems

When clinicians experience burnout, they are far more likely to leave their organization or healthcare altogether. In one study, physicians who reported an intent to leave due to burnout were three times as likely to have left the organization than those who did not report an intent to leave .

This highlights a unique challenge to the healthcare burnout crisis. Fueled in part by staff shortages and overburdened clinicians, burnout has the potential to lead to more burnout as clinicians leave their organizations or the field altogether.

This turnover (or " burnover ") also places extreme financial strain on health systems, which can, in turn, drive up costs for patients. We will cover the costs of healthcare burnout later in this article.

How healthcare burnout affects patients

Cost of healthcare burnout

Burnout is putting immense financial pressure on health systems , b ut p lacing an exact dollar amount on it is complicated. Conservative , generally accepted estimates suggest that burnout costs the U.S. healthcare system $4.6 billion annually . However, t his estimate only account s for physician turnover and reduced clinical hours attributable to burnout.

used data from a midsize healthcare organization with about 500 clinicians to measure the total costs of study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2023 physician burnout. It discovered that, on average, a burnt-out clinician is less productive than a non-burnt-out counterpart by nearly $81,000 per year. Factoring this in with other considerations, i t concluded that the total cost of burnout at this organization likely amounts to ov er $20 million annually , or $40,000 per employe d physician , significantly higher than the commonly accepted estimates.

2018 data from the AMA found that the cost of losing just one physician due to burnout could range from $500,000 to more than $1 million. This estimate inclu des recruitment, sign- on bonuses, lost billings and onboarding costs.

"The absence of cost calculations for many of the documented impacts of clinician burnout can lead to erroneous decision-making and budgeting by healthcare organizations, such as deciding against implementing a policy that seems too expensive based solely on the cost of turnover when in fact the policy would pass a benefit-cost test based on the full costs burnout." - NBER, 2023

Again, estimating the exact cost of physician burnout is complex, but any realistic estimation likely puts the costs well into the millions for midsize to large health systems.

at one hospital across three service lines. The cost averaged from $82,000 to $88,000 per nurse lost . It's important to note that this is only looking at turnover, not the entire cost of burnou t . Additionally, turnover can be the result of factors besides just burnout. Nonetheless , the existing data and estimates highlight the extreme financial strain burnout can have on organizations.

What causes burnout in healthcare workers?

has many causes. Societal, cultural, structural and organizational factors all contribute to burnout. Excessive workloads, lack of organizational support and too much time spent on administrative tasks can all contribute to feelings of burnout in clinicians. Let's take a closer look at how these factors negatively impact clinicians.

Covid-19 pandemic: Of course, the Covid-19 pandemic contributed a great deal to clinician burnout. As we already mentioned, burnout peaked in 2021 during the height of the pandemic. The pandemic intensified what was already a challenging job. Clinicians had to endure long working hours, an overburdened healthcare system, risky working conditions
Overburdened clinicians:
Most clinicians entered healthcare to care for patients. Increasingly, they are spending less time doing so. A study conducted by JAMIA found that, on average, physicians spend only about 40 percent of their day face-to-face with patients . Much of this is spent on administrative tasks and managing their patient inbox. The AMA features a quote from Dr. CT Lin, CMIO at UCHealth , that sums up how many physicians currently feel:

"Physicians don't quit their jobs, their patients, or their bosses; they quit their inboxes." - Dr. CT Lin, CMIO, UCHealth

Staff shortages are only making matters worse for overburdened clinicians. Staff shortages: Studies predict a workforce shortage of more than 195,000 nurses by the year 2031 and up to 180,000 physicians by 2034. According to the AMA, 40% of doctors expressed an interest in leaving their organization within two years.
EHR frustration & tech stress:
EHR frustration, more broadly known as tech stress, is another contributing factor to burnout that has been receiving more attention lately. EHRs and other technologies burden clinicians in multiple ways. First, most clinicians go into healthcare to work with patients, not technology. Thus, the more time they spend interacting with technology, the farther they feel from their mission. But the two factors that are primarily causing EHR-induced burnout are poor usability and the amount of time clinicians spend in the EHR.

Regardless of the chosen EHR, usability is low. One study sought to explore the association between perceived EHR usability and burnout among US physicians . It concluded:

"The usability of current EHR systems received a grade of F by physician users when evaluated using a standardized metric of technology usability. A strong dose-response relationship between EHR usability and the odds of burnout was observed . "

Clinicians are also spending too much time in the EHR. Data from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services notes that Streamlining the EHR workflow and allowing clinicians to focus more of their time on patient care is an imperative step in the battle against healthcare burnout. physicians spend two hours in the EHR system for every one hour spent with patients. Nurses spend up to 41% of their time on EHRs and documentation.

How to reduce healthcare burnout

There's no magic button for reducing health worker burnout, but organizations are working toward solutions. Reducing burnout will take a multi-pronged, collaborative effort on behalf of health systems, healthcare vendors, government and more. Here are just some of the strategies that can help reduce burnout in health workers:

AI-aided documentation: Advancements in AI technology allow clinicians to offload some tasks in the EHR, reducing their tech burden. However, some tasks will still likely require a human to complete. AI introduces many opportunities for healthcare, but it also comes with inherent risks.

Quality initial and ongoing EHR training: One of the best ways to reduce tech stress, a significant contributor to burnout, is by providing clinicians with quality onboarding and ongoing training. Quality training can improve proficiency with the EHR, saving clinicians valuable time in their day-to-day tasks. KLAS Research is on a mission to improve the EHR experience. Data from a study they conducted in 2018 suggests that quality init ial training is the single most important determinant in EHR satisfaction , having even more impact on satisfaction than the EHR technology itself.

EHR personalization: Another way to improve the EHR experience is to focus on personalization. EHR p ersonalization i s the process of configuring the EHR and its workflows to optimize use for individuals or groups of users. It can make the EHR easier to navigate and more efficient for certain tasks.

Reducing symptoms of healthcare burnout with uPerform just-in-time training

Reducing healthcare burnout requires a comprehensive strategy. Part of that strategy must be improving EHR usability and satisfaction. uPerform is a just-in-time learning and support platform that enables organizations to create and deliver self-paced learning materials to clinicians directly in their workflow. Leading health systems are leveraging uPerform to scale training efforts and improve EHR satisfaction and proficiency :

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Healthcare burnout is plaguing the US health system. Here's what we can do.

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Healthcare burnout is impacting clinicians at alarming rates. Learn how a modernized training strategy can help.

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Burnout is more than just being tired. It's a deep, ongoing decrease in your energy, motivation, and sense of self. Burnout in the workplace is caused by a combination of systemic, organizational, and personal factors. It's more than just stress, it's a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion resulting from prolonged and excessive pressure. Burnout can be caused by an excessive workload, a toxic work environment, lack of support, and more.

I believe there are additional factors that contribute to burnout, factors that often go unnoticed. One of them is subtle micromanagement. It’s incredibly irritating and can absolutely lead to burnout. When someone is in a position of leadership, they don’t want others constantly “checking up” on them or offering to “help,” only to then question their ability to do the job. It’s even worse when someone starts redoing your work, which can feel disrespectful and demoralizing.

Another significant contributor is the feeling that the job or work has no real meaning in your life. That can take a serious toll. Yes, the workload may be manageable, but if you feel like your work lacks purpose, it can eventually lead to burnout.

Personal life issues colliding with work is another major but often overlooked factor. As we all know, life does not stop just because you have a job, and vice versa. Illness, financial strain, loss, and other personal stressors still follow you to work. When there’s no space to process or recover from what’s happening, the pressure builds. It’s the need to pretend everything is okay that really deepens the burnout.

These lesser-known causes often compound silently and may go unnoticed even by HR or managers. Burnout isn't just about "too much work"; it’s about how safe, supported, and human you feel at work. Even subtle disrespect, emotional isolation, or lack of purpose can slowly break someone down over time.

There was a time when I worked as a third-shift housekeeper at UTMC. The work itself wasn’t hard at all. However, we were extremely short-staffed, and a lot of extra responsibilities started to get pushed onto everyone, especially third shift. Management assumed that since we were on the night shift, we could handle much more.

Around that same time, a lot of personal challenges started to pile up. I was trying to juggle working a full-time job, being a full-time student, and also trying to carve out time to simply live. It was all starting to become too much. That heavy load of personal stress began to shift how I felt about work. The job itself hadn't changed, it still wasn’t difficult but with everything going on in my life, it started to feel overwhelming.

I eventually began to really notice how much management expected from the third shift. I started to feel the signs of burnout, and eventually, I made the decision to switch departments.

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in my experience burnout comes from a multitude of sources that culminates in stress, depression, and an all together lack of caring. In the healthcare profession, or really any kind of work that requires high levels of commitment; burnout is a regularly experienced. it generally happens slowly over time but can be accelerated by a number of factors. General stress, daily repetition, and feeling like your employer doesn't care REALLY accelerates burnout. when I worked for fedex we worked long hours doing the same thing everyday, it didnt matter how well you could do your job, managers would play favorites and give easy trailers to the laziest people just because they would argue every time they were told to do something. this behavior would often times lead to widespread moral dip because we knew that everyone else was going to have to work harder to pick up the slack. In the healthcare setting ive seen the same type of treatment happen and it has the same effect on employees. i feel like employers need to be sincere when it comes to listening to employee concerns, and truly address what is bringing down team moral/

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I like to share personal experiences with burnout, as well as others I have worked with for many years, including a beloved CRNA. To protect names, I will call her June. June was a well respected anesthetist that had been working in the O.R. She started as an ICU nurse in the late 70’s and progressed her way to a CRNA. She was stern, feisty, sometimes mistaken as mean and senile. She would talk aloud to herself, but that was her way of getting organized, and some people are just like that (everyone has their own little ‘quirks’). Despite what others thought about her, I loved her. She cared deeply for her patients and was as serious as a heart attack when caring for them (she liked complete silence when intubating/extubations a patient, and would let you know in a scathing manner if you were disruptive). She was exceptionally gifted in anesthesia, and she was my “go-to” for any surgeries of mine. I was glad to establish rapport with her, and she knew I respected her. I noticed, though she became more agitated and angrier towards the end of 2018 and 2019. I knew she wanted to retire soon. When COVID-19 hit, she discreetly retired and was adamant that the anesthesia department not to get her a cake or a retirement party. In the year of 2020, she took her own life. I was completely devastated, as well as some of the Attendings. I sought out answers from one of the doctors, and he told me that she was basically “burnt out”. After going through the motions for so many years, and then when the pandemic hit, she never really got to enjoy her retirement. So it was almost like she was worked to death, and then stuck in the confinements of the social distancing, which had to have been torture. I know some people that work their whole lives, mainly because it is all they have, or it is part of their identity. Maybe they feel they cannot escape, becoming burnt out to a crisp. I am sure June was mentally exhausted, and unable to cope. Perhaps she felt underappreciated. We will never know. I do know that she was taking up yoga at the local YMCA, but that may have not been enough. It’s troubling to have to work 40 hours a week, but there is no choice in the matter in this country, related to inflation and financial hardship. I highly believe in an FMLA for mental health. It makes me so angry to overhear others criticize those for having that. “They abuse the system! Others have to pick up their slack.” There is such a lack of empathy for mental health.

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Burnout is something that I think every person has felt at one point in their lives. It isn't just limited to the medical field. Burnout can be felt at any job. I think burnout does happen more frequently in the medical field though. Healthcare is something that you would think has one set way of how things are done, patients are treated, protocols are followed, and so much more but it couldn't be more different than that. Even going from one hospital to another in the same network is wildly different. Working at one hospital and then moving to another can cause a lot of stress. You get used to how you did things at your last job. Say communication is excellent at your previous job but the hospital you switch to has zero communication at all. You will no doubt be frustrated every time miscommunication causes some sort of error or mistake. Maybe then you decide to take initiative and work out a better communications system and your employer approves. System in place, you realize half the employees don't care and aren't participating and are doing things the old way. Add that on top of the stress of actually planning things and doing it, burnout is immanent.

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Burnout in healthcare is real, and it runs deeper than just being tired after a long shift. From what I’ve seen it’s the result of constant pressure, emotional overload, and feeling like no matter how hard you work, it’s never enough. One major cause is understaffing in plenty of departments across the board. When there aren’t enough hands on deck, the workload falls heavily on those who are there. You’re expected to move fast, multitask, and stay calm under pressure oftentimes without breaks, support, or time to process difficult situations. Over time, that wears you down. Systemic issues play a big role too. Healthcare often focuses on numbers patient quotas, satisfaction scores, insurance limits more than the well-being of the people delivering the care. It feels like decisions are made far away from the bedside, by people who don’t see what’s really happening. In many places, the workplace culture doesn’t help. Speaking up about stress or mental health is still stigmatized. You’re expected to push through even when you’re at your breaking point. That silent suffering becomes part of the job and that’s not okay. And then there’s the emotional toll of patient care itself. You reeally get the chance to see loss and crisis up close. You build relationships with patients while having to carry the weight of sometimes losing them. You deal with family dynamics, emergencies and patients who may not trust or cooperate with the care they need. That emotional weight adds up throughout time. Burnout doesn’t happen overnight, It builds in layers and if we don’t start caring for the ourselves as healthcare professionals we risk losing the heart of healthcare itself.

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There are many factors that add in to healthcare workers "burning out", we saw a heavy amount of burn out during the height of COVID in 2020. Some of the factors that play parts into burnout include understaffing, patient overload, and laziness amongst coworkers. If a facility is understaffed there is an increase of staff completing tasks that are not in their professional wheelhouse, and also that is when we start to see patient overload where there are too many patients assigned to one person which adds to the level of stress that is already high being that people's lives are in their hands. Where the laziness factor comes in is when certain staff members decide they aren't going to assist in the completion of a task because "it's not their responsibility". When working in healthcare all staff must do their part to ensure that all aspects of the job are being completed and when some people decide that they are not going to help complete tasks, there are others who go out of their way to do more. Those who do more generally end up being stuck doing the most while others get to reap the benefit of only doing their job.