Practices Should Monitor Factors That Lead to Clinician Satisfaction

HealthDay News — Modifiable conditions, like chaos, incohesiveness, and lack of communication, contribute to unsatisfying workplaces for clinicians, according to a study published in Health Affairs.

Mark Linzer, MD, from the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, and colleagues examined data from the Healthy Work Place trial to understand how clinicians’ job satisfaction (both physicians and advanced practice providers) relates to work conditions and outcomes for clinicians and patients.

The researchers found that satisfaction was associated with less chaos, more cohesion, better communication, and closer values alignment at work, but not with higher-quality care or fewer medical errors. 

After 1 year of follow-up, the respondents who indicated increased satisfaction (16% of these respondents) were almost 3 times more likely to report improved burnout scores and over 8 times as likely to indicate reduced intention to leave their practices versus clinicians whose satisfaction did not increase.

“These findings confirm that clinicians’ job satisfaction is related to remediable work conditions and suggest that it may be an important metric for clinical practices and practice organizations,” the authors write.

Reference

Linzer M, Sinsky CA, Poplau S, Brown R, Williams E, Healthy Work Place Investigators. Joy in medical practice: clinician satisfaction in the healthy work place trial. Health Aff (Millwood). 2017; 36(10):1808-1814.