Prissel, Pamela

Clinician burnout and patient experience are important issues that are often considered separately. New measures of resilience may influence both. We explored relationships among clinician resilience, burnout, and patient experience. Analysis included 490 physicians who completed surveys measuring burnout and resilience (decompression and activation) and had at least 30 patient experience surveys available for analysis. Burnout was measured with 2 items from the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) which were part of the organization’s ongoing measurement of clinician experience. Resilience was measured with 8 items from 2 Press Ganey validated subscales related to clinicians’ ability to decompress from work and their experience of feeling of activation and connection to purpose while at work. Clinicians reporting more frequent symptoms of burnout based on the MBI items reported less ability to decompress ( r for individual measures ranged from −.183 to −.475, P < .01) and less feeling of activation ( r for individual measures ranged from −.116 to −.401, P < .01). Individual elements of decompression and activation were significantly associated with patient experience. In terms of activation, feeling that one’s work makes a difference ( r ranged from .121 to .159, P < .05) and believing one’s work to be meaningful ( r ranged from .102 to .135, P < .05) were positively associated with patient experience with their care provider. However, elements of decompression such as being able to free one’s mind from work ( r ranged from −.092 to −.119, P < .05) and being able to disconnect from work communications such as e-mails ( r ranged from −.094 to −.130, P < .05) were negatively associated with patient experience with their care providers. Patient and provider experience are intertwined in that clinician resilience is associated with both burnout and patient experience, but individual mechanisms of resilience may be beneficial for the clinician but not for the patient.

Patient experience is emerging as a key differentiating factor in patients’ choice of healthcare system. Many healthcare organizations are attempting to improve their patient experience by data-driven, patient-centered initiatives. This involves engaging all staff along all the contact points of a patient’s journey in healthcare. Perhaps, the physicians or care providers are most important link in this chain but also the most challenging to engage in improvement efforts. Most healthcare organizations have some training or workshops to educate providers on communication skills and other tools to enhance patient experience. However, there seems to a paucity of a standardized approach or a roadmap to put together a robust physician or care provider coaching or improvement partnership program with patient experience (PX) staff. There seems to be several gaps in this process. The current article attempts to develop broad guidelines and suggest a roadmap to address these gaps. The article also suggests general templates for PX staff to use in conducting these improvement work with providers and suggestions for developing a standard physician observation or shadowing template for consistency. The article has woven several commonly used tools like motivational interviewing, change management (ADKAR model), and several communication tools to suggest a detailed blue print for provider patient experience improvement partnership.