Moving the needle on primary care burnout: Using a driver diagram to accelerate impact

Erin E Sullivan; Kathleen Dwiel; Lindsay Swain Hunt; Kathleen Conroy; Katherine Gergen Barnett

doi:10.1016/j.hjdsi.2021.100595

Moving the needle on primary care burnout: Using a driver diagram to accelerate impact

Healthc (Amst). 2021 Dec;9(4):100595. doi: 10.1016/j.hjdsi.2021.100595. Epub 2021 Nov 17.

Authors

Erin E Sullivan¹, Kathleen Dwiel², Lindsay Swain Hunt², Kathleen Conroy³, Katherine Gergen Barnett⁴

Affiliations

¹ Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care, USA; Sawyer School of Business, Suffolk University and Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care, USA. Electronic address: Erin_Sullivan@hms.harvard.edu.
² Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care, USA.
³ Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA.
⁴ Boston Medical Center, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston University Institute for Health System Innovation and Policy, USA.

Abstract

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, studies demonstrated an alarming prevalence of burnout in primary care. In the midst of the pandemic, primary care clinician wellbeing deteriorated and burnout rates increased, yet many organizational efforts to reduce burnout were put on hold due to the urgency of the pandemic. In this article, we present the "Reducing Burnout Driver Diagram" as a tool that clinical leaders and policy makers can use to address and mitigate primary care clinician burnout.

Keywords: Burnout; Patient care team; Primary care; Quality improvement.

MeSH terms

Burnout, Psychological
COVID-19*
Humans
Pandemics*
Primary Health Care
SARS-CoV-2