Hiring and retaining clinicians in today's market

Burnout and the modern healthcare system

Author

Lauren Curtis
June 11, 2024

Hey Health Techies!

Last week I went to the Digital Health Innovation Summit - East held in Boston. It was a great chance to meet other healthcare optimists in the space and to hear about the big problems that people are trying to solve.

But it wasn’t all AI-this and digital transformation- that. Oddly enough, the session on the agenda that piqued my interest the most was a decidedly human-focused panel on clinician burnout.

Sure, burnout is not a new topic in the industry. We’ve seen studies and infographics on the topic for years. Then we saw a surge in burnout during 2020 and 2021, and the conversation around it hit an absolute fever-pitch.

Up until now, most conversations that I have heard about addressing burnout for clinicians have focused on what measures are being taken at large health systems. It makes sense given the large concentration of healthcare providers in these organizations.

But this was actually the first time I’d seen a group of startup leaders really sharing about the problems that today’s clinicians are facing in the healthcare system. Perhaps it’s because there are so many other problems in healthcare are so easy to spot that the “people problems” kind of take a back seat to all of the reimbursement, prior authorization, faxing, cost, and lack of transparency problems.

One reason that was cited for this problem coming into focus for leaders and people operations teams recently is the emphasis on healthcare companies achieving profitability. This has most certainly become a top priority for leaders as pursestrings have tightened with respect to funding over the past year. The most obvious way to do it? Focus on labor costs. While for some companies this looks like a reduction in administrative staff, for many healthcare companies a reduction in labor costs means reducing reliance on outside staffing agencies and a return to focusing on full-time employees in the organization.

Notably, 3 of the 4 panel participants were providers themselves who were all too familiar with the challenges that frontline staff face. And if you have any hope in retaining talent these days? You have to take care of basic needs like schedule flexibility, paid time off, and access to mental health services.

Here were a few themes that came up across the panelists on things that we can look forward to in addressing burnout in companies both large and small:

👩🏻‍🏫 Education and training

  • Leaders are focused on ensuring that team members are supported and trained for the role that they are stepping into as they onboard. Allowing time for these activities improves job satisfaction and patient safety as well.

🕐 Flexibility

  • Startups realize that they have a major advantage over some of the large, incumbent companies in that they can often offer clinicians with a much more flexible schedule. Maybe that means flexible hours, PTO, or flexible location, but either way they are doubling down on this knowing that it improves employee satisfaction and retention.

🛣️ Career pathing

  • It’s no surprise that a lot of clinicians feel stuck in their roles even after just a few years because of the lack of career pathing and planning resources available to them. Whether their path remains clinical or pivots to administrative or non-traditional roles, smart companies are working with clinicians to give them room to grow.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Focus on team-based care

  • Great clinicians know that a team-based approach to caring for patients is best but it rarely comes together in practice. It’s hard to coordinate, schedule, and execute but many point solutions offering specialized care for in women’s health, mental health, and metabolic spaces are working hard to make this model work — taking the pressure off of a singular provider and making sure everyone is able to practice at the top of their license.

🤗 Increased reliance on non-licensed team members

  • Similar to the team-based approach, many companies are adopting an approach that utilizes non-licensed team members as well. Whether that be via peer to peer mentorship, coaching, or community platforms, a well-constructed approach like this can allow patients to feel more supported in their day to day activities while still having access to licensed providers when more advanced support is needed.

What do you think about these approaches? Have you seen any others in practice that seem to be working well?

📰 Weekly Wrap-up

👀 Don’t miss these open roles

Until next time,

Lauren