A new AMA-led study reported in the April 2022 issue of “Mayo Clinic Proceedings” concludes that turnover of primary care physicians results in $979 million in excess health care costs for Americans each year ­– even before the COVID-19 pandemic. The same study found that $260 million of those costs, or 27%, are attributable to work-related burnout. The AMA and the National Academy of Medicine have both created resources to help physicians and health systems prevent burnout and attrition.

AMA STEPS Forward™ 
“The AMA continues to work on every front to address the physician burnout crisis,” an AMA news release about the new study said. “Through our research, collaborations, advocacy and leadership, the AMA is working to make the patient‐physician relationship more valued than paperwork, preventive care the focus of the future, technology an asset and not a burden, and physician burnout a thing of the past.”

A key initiative to address burnout, the AMA STEPS Forward™ modules, includes toolkits, podcasts, webinars and other resources to help physicians and health systems nurture a joy in medicine.

Toolkits: 
This collection of more than 70 online toolkits “helps physicians and medical teams make transformative changes to their practices,” according to the AMA. Subject areas include burnout and well-being, EHR and technology, organizational culture, patient-physician experience, and team-based care and workflow. 

Podcast:
Monthly episodes feature health care leaders sharing “how they overcame practice challenges by implementing real-world solutions that helped put the joy back into medicine.”

Webinar Series:
This series “provides interactive instruction from experts who address practical, actionable strategies to transform the medical field and practices” and is “designed to help physicians, care teams and health care leaders implement time-saving practice innovation strategies that promote joy in medicine, efficient use of technology, practice sustainability and quality patient care.” The most recent webinar, “Setting Boundaries for Preventing Fatigue and Building Resilience,” and others are available on demand. 

National Academy of Medicine (NAM)
The NAM Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience, a network of more than 200 organizations committed to reversing trends in clinician burnout, aims to  raise the visibility of clinician anxiety, burnout, depression, stress, and suicide; improve baseline understanding of challenges to clinician well-being; and advance evidence-based, multidisciplinary solutions to improve patient care by caring for the caregiver.

Clinician Retention in the Era of COVID: Uniting the Health Workforce to Optimize Well-Being: 
This recent virtual meeting “aimed to learn from those who have developed pathways forward with well-being as the key,” the NAM said. The recording, presentations and chats from this recent meeting are now available.

Clinician Burnout Crisis in the Era of COVID-19: Insights from the Frontlines of Care: 
This report shares responses to a questionnaire on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinicians’ personal and professional lives.

Learn more about the Clinician Well-Being Collaborative and find more resources here. 

Read the Mayo Clinic Proceedings article, “Health Care Expenditures Attributable to Primary Care Physician Overall and Burnout-Related Turnover: A Cross-sectional Analysis.”