Burnout and Health Care Workforce Turnover

The Article in Brief

Burnout and Health Care Workforce Turnover

Rachel Willard-Grace , and colleagues

Background Burnout is alarmingly high among primary care clinicians and staff, but is it related to turnover of personnel?

What This Study Found New research finds that burnout contributes to turnover among primary care clinicians, but not staff. The study of 740 primary care clinicians and staff in two health systems compared 2013-14 survey data on burnout and employee engagement (the likelihood of recommending their clinic as a place to work) with 2016 employment roster data. Fifty-three percent of both clinicians and staff reported burnout, while only one-third (32 percent of clinicians and 35 percent of staff) reported feeling highly engaged in their work. By 2016, 30 percent of clinicians and 41 percent of staff no longer worked in primary care in the same healthcare system. Clinicians who reported burnout in 2013-14 were more likely to leave the health system by 2016, taking into account their clinical time and length of time they had worked in the system. In regression models, neither burnout nor employee engagement predicted turnover for staff.

Implications

• The high rates of turnover, the authors suggest, have important implications for patient care. Continuity of care, which is a fundamental principle of primary care, is difficult to maintain in environments with frequent clinician and staff turnover. Furthermore, turnover is expensive for health care organizations.
• Although reducing burnout may help decrease rates of turnover among clinicians, the authors urge health care organizations and policymakers concerned about primary care employee turnover to understand its multifactorial causes and develop effective retention strategies for clinicians and staff.