Some hospitals have begun to resist providing more support, and this translates into stress and lower morale for hospitalists. This is far from a universal issue, but it does lead to lower morale for hospitalists who face it.Image Credit: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Using quotes to ensure that the results were only those that include the two words adjacent to one another, rather than separated, I entered the following phrases into my Google search engine:
- “hospitalist burnout” = 1,580 results
- “hospitalist morale” = 208 results
- “hospitalist well-being” = 0 results
I think the number of results suggests the level of interest in each topic and, if that is the case, clearly thinking about how hospitalists are doing in their careers is more commonly done through the paradigm of burnout than the other two terms. (Of course, there may be other terms that I didn’t consider.) In fact, there have been a handful of published studies of hospitalist burnout and job satisfaction.1,2
Those studies generally have shown both reasonably high levels of job satisfaction and troubling levels of burnout.
But I’ve been thinking about hospitalist morale for a while. I think morale is reasonably distinct from both burnout and job satisfaction.
Causes of a National Decline in Hospitalist Morale
I think hospitalist morale has declined some over the past two or three years across the country. This observation is meaningful because it comes from my experience working with a lot of hospitalist groups coast to coast. But I’m the first to admit it is just anecdotal and is subject to my own biases.
I can think of several things contributing to a decline in morale.
EHR adoption. Near the top of the list is the adoption of EHRs in many hospitals, which typically leads doctors in other specialties to seek hospitalist assistance with EHR-related tasks (e.g. medicine reconciliation and order writing) even in cases where there is little or no clinical reason for hospitalist involvement. Lots of hospitalists complain about this. To be clear, in many hospitals the hospitalists are reasonably content with using the EHR, but they experience ongoing frustration and low morale resulting from nonclinical work other doctors pressure them to take over.
Observation status. Many hospitals began classifying a larger portion of patients as observation status over the last few years; at the same time, patients and families have become more aware of how much of a disadvantage this is. In many cases, it is the hospitalist who takes the brunt of patient and family frustration. This can get awfully stressful and frustrating, and I think it is a contributor to allegations of malpractice.
Budgetary stress. Ever since SHM began collecting survey data in the late 1990s, the financial support hospitals have been providing to hospitalists has increased dramatically. The most recent State of Hospital Medicine report, published in 2104, showed median support provided by hospitals of $156,063 per FTE hospitalist, per year. Some hospitals have begun to resist providing more support, and this translates into stress and lower morale for hospitalists. This is far from a universal issue, but it does lead to lower morale for hospitalists who face it.
Many other factors may be contributing to a national decline in morale, but I think these are some of the most important.
What Can Be Done?
Some hospitalist groups have great morale now and don’t need to do much of anything right now, but some groups should think about a deliberate strategy to improve it.
Sadly, there isn’t a prescription that is sure to work. But there are some things you can try.