Physician and Nurse Burnout in the Midst of COVID-19 Surges
As coronavirus cases spike across the country, with over 500,000 new cases occurring nationwide in the last week of October alone, another epidemic is also rearing its head: Physician and nurse burnout. A recent article from USA Today, “Hospitals overwhelmed: Exhausted staffs, surging COVID-19 cases push nation’s limits,” explores the inordinate burden on healthcare workers during this crisis, and the limited options available to address the surge in patients seriously ill with coronavirus.
Strains on healthcare workers have been a significant issue even before the start of the global pandemic. Surveys and evaluations have shown that the majority of American physicians are experiencing symptoms of burnout, with physicians experiencing burnout at twice the rate of workers in other professions. Manifestations of burnout in physicians can include negativity or lack of empathy towards patients, decreased feelings of success or achievement, depression, anxiety, and overall emotional exhaustion. In the worst cases, burnout can lead to physician suicide, which has a devastating impact not only on a given physician’s family and community but also serious infrastructural and financial consequences for hospital systems as a whole.
Now, the pandemic is exacerbating the problem of physician and nurse burnout, placing unprecedented strain on clinicians as they struggle to treat a rapidly increasing number of critically ill patients. As of Thursday, October 30th, some 46,000 patients were hospitalized, with cases on the rise in 41 states. The result: Hospitals struggling to fill staffing needs in order to accommodate the surge in cases, desperately seeking reinforcements to care for the many patients arriving in their intensive care units. Meanwhile, doctors, nurses, and specialists respiratory therapists are depleted and exhausted, working long hours consecutively, seeing high numbers of patients per shift, and worrying about their health and the health of their families.
To try to fill staffing vacancies and relieve some of the burden on full-time clinicians, staffing agencies are increasingly relying on travel nurses to step in and fill the gaps. Staffing agencies such as RN Network, a subsidiary of Salt Lake City-based CGH Healthcare, reported a 130% increase in staffing requests during the month of October. Emergency staffing gigs can pay 20-30% above normal rates, resulting in some nurses leaving full-time jobs to become travel nurses due to the potential for more lucrative positions without the commitments of long-term staff roles.
Still, vacancies abound–and doctors and nurses on the ground remain strained and overwhelmed, struggling to treat staggering numbers of critically ill patients with too few numbers. The problem becomes even worse when doctors or nurses and their families become ill or need to quarantine, leaving short-staffed groups even shorter. In some locations, hospitals are now forced to consider options such as rationing care, along with retrofitting other areas of hospitals to serve as makeshift ICUs. However, these efforts will likely not be enough–and as cases continue to climb, the ability for hospitals to take on patients from neighboring hard-hit communities goes down, and mortality will continue to rise.
