Reducing burnout and enhancing work engagement among clinicians: The Minnesota experience.

BACKGROUND: The Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) recognized the impact that burnout and disengagement had on the clinician population. A clinician task force developed a conceptual framework, followed by annual surveys and a series of interventions. Features of the job demands-resources model were used as the conceptual underpinning to this analysis. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to assess the applicability of a clinician-driven conceptual model in understanding burnout and work engagement in the state of Minnesota. METHODOLOGY: Four thousand nine hundred ninety clinicians from 94 MHA member hospitals/systems responded to a 2018 survey using a brief instrument adapted, in part, from previously validated measures. RESULTS: As hypothesized, job demands were strongly related to burnout, whereas resources were most related to work engagement. Variables from the MHA model explained 40% of variability in burnout and 24% of variability in work engagement. Variables related to burnout with the highest beta weights included having sufficient time for work (-0.266), values alignment with leaders (-0.176), and teamwork efficiency (-0.123), all ps < .001. Variables most associated with engagement included values alignment (0.196), feeling appreciated (0.163), and autonomy (0.093), ps < .001. CONCLUSION: Findings support the basic premises of the proposed conceptual model. Remediable work-life conditions, such as having sufficient time to do the job, values alignment with leadership, teamwork efficiency, feeling appreciated, and clinician autonomy, manifested the strongest associations with burnout and work engagement. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Interventions reducing job demands and strengthening resources such as values alignment, teamwork efficiency, and clinician autonomy are seen as having the greatest potential efficacy.

Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of LifeCourse on Utilization and Patient and Caregiver Quality of Life and Experience.

Whole-person care is a new paradigm for serious illness, but few programs have been robustly studied. We sought to test the effect of LifeCourse (LC), a person-centered program for patients living with serious illness, on health-care utilization, care experience, and quality of life, employing a quasi-experimental design with a Usual Care (UC) comparison group. The study was conducted 2012 to 2017 at an upper-Midwest not-for-profit health-care system with outcomes measured every 3 months until the end of life. Enrolled patients (N = 903) were estimated to be within 3 years of end of life and diagnosed with 1+ serious illness. Exclusion criteria included hospice enrollment at time of screening or active dying. Community health workers (CHWs) delivered standardized monthly 1-hour home visits based on palliative care guidelines and motivational interviewing to promote patients' physical, psychosocial, and financial well-being. Primary outcomes included health-care utilization and patient- and caregiver-experience and quality of life. Patients were elderly (LC 74, UC 78 years) and primarily non-Hispanic, white, living at home with cardiovascular disease as the primary diagnosis (LC 69%, UC 57%). A higher proportion of LC patients completed advance directives (N = 173, 38%) than UC patients (N = 66, 15%; P < .001). LifeCourse patients who died spent more days in hospice (88 ± 191 days) compared to UC patients (44 ± 71 days; P = .018). LifeCourse patients reported greater improvements than UC in communication as part of the care experience ( P = .016). Implementation of person-centered programs delivered by CHWs is feasible; inexpensive upstream expansion of palliative care models can yield benefits for patients and caregivers. Trial Registration: Trial NCT01746446 was registered on November 27, 2012 at ClinicalTrials.gov .

Measuring caregiver activation to identify coaching and support needs: Extending MYLOH to advanced chronic illness.

INTRODUCTION: Family and friends of seriously ill patients are key partners in providing support and health care at home, managing relationships with clinicians, and navigating complex health care systems. Becoming a knowledgeable, confident, and effective caregiver is a developmental process we term 'caregiver activation' and could be facilitated by clinicians equipped with suitable tools. Managing Your Loved One's Health (MYLOH) is a new tool to identify gaps in caregivers' knowledge, skills, and access to clinical and personal support. Created in partnership with caregivers and clinicians, MYLOH items reflect the essential dimensions of caregiving and can be used to tailor caregiver coaching to domains of greatest need. In this study, we extend MYLOH's initial focus on dementia care to caregivers of patients with other chronic life-limiting illnesses. METHODS: MYLOH was completed by primary caregivers (n = 190) of people with a range of advanced chronic illnesses enrolled in the LifeCourse study, an innovative, whole-person approach to health management. Item relevance and responses were compared by group across MYLOH items and domains using z-tests for equality of proportions. RESULTS: All MYLOH items were relevant to caregiving for all types of chronic illness; only 13% of caregivers answered "not my responsibility" to any question. MYLOH identified caregiving struggles across patient diagnosis groups with a few, disease-specific 'hotspots'. Overall, 64% of caregivers scored low in activation on at least one healthcare management task, especially getting enough help with caregiving, managing everyday caregiving tasks, understanding/managing medications, and knowing how to respond to rapid changes in care recipients' health status. No difficulty was unique to a specific type of care recipient illness. CONCLUSIONS: MYLOH has potential as a tool for identifying caregiver coaching and support needs in managing a range of serious chronic illnesses. Caregiving difficulties endorsed by over 20% of caregivers should be core components of chronic illness management programs regardless of disease focus, with disease-specific tailoring as required. MYLOH may be useful in evaluating caregiver interventions and health systems' performance in integrating caregivers into the care management of patients with complex life-limiting illness.

Effect of a Whole-Person Model of Care on Patient Experience in Patients With Complex Chronic Illness in Late Life.

BACKGROUND: Patients with serious chronic illness are at a greater risk of depersonalized, overmedicalized care as they move into later life. Existing intervention research on person-focused care for persons in this transitional period is limited. OBJECTIVE: To test the effects of LifeCourse, a team-based, whole-person intervention emphasizing listening to and knowing patients, on patient experience at 6 months. DESIGN: This is a quasi-experimental study with patients allocated to LifeCourse and comparison groups based on 2 geographic locations. Robust change-score regression models adjusted for baseline differences and confounding. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Patients (113 intervention, 99 comparison in analyses) were individuals with heart failure or other serious chronic illness, cancer, or dementia who had visits to hospitals at a large multipractice health system in the United States Midwest. MEASUREMENTS: Primary outcome was 6-month change in patient experience measured via a novel, validated 21-item patient experience tool developed specifically for this intervention. Covariates included demographics, comorbidity score, and primary diagnosis. RESULTS: At 6 months, LifeCourse was associated with a moderate improvement in overall patient experience versus usual care. Individual domain subscales for care team, communication, and patient goals were not individually significant but trended positively in the direction of effect. CONCLUSION: Person-focused, team-based interventions can improve patient experience with care at a stage fraught with overmedicalization and many care needs. Improvement in patient experience in LifeCourse represents the sum effect of small improvements across different domains/aspects of care such as relationships with and work by the care team.

Extending Our Understanding of Burnout and Its Associated Factors: Providers and Staff in Primary Care Clinics.

Burnout has been identified as an occupational hazard in the helping professions for many years and is often overlooked, as health-care systems strive to improve cost and quality. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS) are tools for assessing burnout prevalence and its associated factors. We describe how we used them in outpatient clinics to assess burnout for multiple job types. Traditional statistical techniques and seemingly unrelated regression were used to describe the sample and evaluate the association between work life domains and burnout. Of 838 eligible participants, 467 (55.7%) were included for analysis. Burnout prevalence varied across three job categories: providers (37.5%), clinical assistants (24.6%), and other staff (28.0%). It was not related to age, gender, or years of tenure but was lower in part-time workers (24.6%) than in full-time workers (33.9%). Analysis of the AWS subscales identified organizational correlates of burnout. Accurately identifying and defining the operative system factors associated with burnout will make it possible to create successful interventions. Using the MBI and the AWS together can highlight the relationship between system work experiences and burnout.

Development and validation of a new patient experience tool in patients with serious illness.

BACKGROUND: Patients with serious chronic illnesses face increasingly complex care and are at risk of poor experience due to a fragmented health system. Most current patient experience tools are not designed to address the unique care aspects of this population and the few that exist are delivered too late in the disease trajectory and are not administered longitudinally which makes them less useful across settings. METHODS: We developed a new tool designed to address these gaps. The 25 item scale was tested and refined using randomly cross-validated exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Participants were not yet hospice eligible but sick enough to receive benefits of a supportive care approach in the last 2 to 3 years of life. Full information maximum likelihood models were run to confirm the factor structure developed in exploratory analyses. Goodness-of-fit was assessed with the Comparative Fit Index, the Tucker-Lewis Index, and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation. Test-retest reliability was assessed with the intraclass correlation coefficient and internal consistency of the final scale was examined using Cronbach's alpha. RESULTS: Exploratory factor analysis revealed three domains - Care Team, Communication, and Care Goals - after removing weak loading and cross loading items. The initial three domain measurement model suggested in the development cohort was tested in the validation cohort and exhibited poor fit X 2 (206) = 565.37, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.879; TLI = 0.864; RMSEA = 0.076. After model respecification, including removing one additional item and allowing paths between theoretically plausible error terms, the final 21 item tool exhibited good fit X 2 (173) = 295.63, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.958; TLI = 0.949; RMSEA = 0.048. Cronbach's alpha revealed high reliability of each domain (Care Team = 0.92, Communication = 0.83, Care Goals = 0.77) and the entire scale (α = 0.91). ICC showed adequate test-retest validity (ICC = 0.58; 95% CI: 0.52-0.65) of the full scale. CONCLUSIONS: When administered earlier in the chronic illness trajectory, a new patient experience scale focused on care teams across settings, communication, and care goals, displayed strong reliability and performed well psychometrically. TRIAL REGISTRATIONS: This trial ( NCT01746446 ) was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov on November 27, 2012 (retrospectively registered).

The Heart of New Ulm Project: using community-based cardiometabolic risk factor screenings in a rural population health improvement initiative.

Awareness of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk factors can improve the health of individuals and populations. Community-based risk factor screening programs may be particularly useful for quantifying the burden of cardiometabolic risk in a given population, particularly in underserved areas. This study provided a description of a screening platform and how it has been used to monitor the cardiometabolic risk profile within the broader Heart of New Ulm Project, which is based in a rural Minnesota community. A cross-sectional, descriptive examination of baseline screening data indicated that 45% of the target population participated in the program over 8 months. Overall, 13% of the sample reported a personal history of diabetes or cardiovascular disease. Among the subset without active cardiometabolic disease, 35% were found to be at high risk for developing cardiovascular disease or type 2 diabetes over the next 8-10 years. A high prevalence of metabolic syndrome, high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, obesity, and low fruit/vegetable consumption were of particular concern in this community. This article describes the use of screening results to inform the design of intervention programs that target these risk factors at both the community and individual levels. In addition, design considerations for future community-based cardiometabolic risk factor screening programs are discussed, with a focus on balancing program objectives related to health surveillance, research, and the delivery of preventive health care services.

Reactions of nurses to the use of electronic health record alert features in an inpatient setting.

While studies have been conducted to assess nurse perception of electronic health records, once electronic health record systems are up and running, there is little to guide the use of features within the electronic health record for nursing practice. Alerts are a promising tool for implementing best practice for patient care in inpatient settings. Yet the use of alerts for inpatient nursing is understudied. This study examined nurse attitudes and reactions to alerts in the inpatient setting. Focus groups were conducted at three hospitals with 50 nurses. Nurses were asked about five different alert features. For each alert, participants were asked about their feelings and reactions to the alert, how alerts help or hinder work, and suggestions for improvements. Findings include clear preferences for alert types and content. Nurses preferred a dashboard style alert with functions included to accomplish tasks directly in the alert. While nurses reported positive reactions to certain alert pages, they also reported low use of those features and occasional distrust of the data included in alerts. Findings provide guidance for future use of alerts and design of new alerts. Findings also identify the important challenge of designing and implementing alerts for integration with nursing workflow.

Stress and workplace productivity loss in the Heart of New Ulm project.

OBJECTIVE: The impact of stress in conjunction with lifestyle factors on workplace productivity is understudied, thus the relationship between these variables was examined. METHODS: Negative binomial regression was used to test the cross-sectional association between stress and productivity loss in a sample of 2823 adults. RESULTS: After body mass index adjustment, there was an interaction between stress and physical activity (ß ± SE = 0.002 ± 0.001, P = 0.033). Active participants with low stress had 2% estimated productivity loss, whereas active participants with high stress had more than 11% productivity loss. Other lifestyle factors were not significant. CONCLUSIONS: Higher stress generally predicted greater productivity loss, but this association varied. At low stress, more activity was associated with less productivity loss. At high stress, more activity was associated with more productivity loss, perhaps indicating that individuals cope by exercising more and working less.

Factors associated with disordered eating among sexually active adolescent males: gender and number of sexual partners.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the prevalence of disordered eating behaviors among sexually active adolescent males by gender and number of sex partners, and examine psychosocial well-being by sex partner factors among boys reporting disordered eating. METHOD: Data were collected from 10,095 9(th) and 12(th) grade Minnesota Student Survey participants who reported sexual intercourse in the past year. RESULTS: The use of any disordered eating behaviors was reported by 39.4% of the sexually active males reporting only female sex partners, 53.4% reporting only male sex partners, and 56.4% reporting both female and male sex partners. Rates of specific disordered eating behaviors were associated with higher numbers of sex partners (male and/or female) and same gender of sex partner, and were highest among those males who reported 3 or more of both genders of sex partners. Among sexually active males reporting disordered eating, poorer emotional well-being and less family connectedness were associated with greater number of partners and with same-sex partners. CONCLUSIONS: Sexually active males, especially those with multiple and/or same-sex partners, may benefit from interventions targeted at reducing disordered eating behaviors. Among sexually active males engaging in disordered eating behaviors, enhancing emotional health and improving family connectedness may be beneficial, especially among those with sex partners of the same gender and/or with multiple sex partners. The identification of specific psychosocial characteristics that are commonly associated with sexually active adolescent males and who exhibit disordered eating behaviors may provide direction toward the development of appropriate early identification, prevention, and treatment efforts.