If there is a culture that eats physician burnout for breakfast, where do you find that restaurant and who is your server?
[ quick link to the answer]

There IS a culture capable of eating burnout for breakfast.

A healthy workplace culture is more than a Unicorn - something you have heard of but never actually seen. I have experienced it personally in sports and on work teams outside of healthcare. Even in high stress, difficult situations, that culture kept us connected, supporting and caring for each other. 

Unfortunately, the typical hostile, overloaded, Triple Aim whirlwind of a workplace culture in a healthcare organization will EAT YOU and your people for breakfast instead.

What about YOUR ORGANIZATION?

I invite you to put on your culture glasses for a moment. These are a lot like comic book X-ray spectacles -- only these lenses allow you to see the fabric of your workplace culture. Slide these glasses on and you can clearly see the informal attitudes and rules that govern the way we interact with each other while delivering patient care.

As you walk through your workplace, imagine your glasses can actually show you the answers to the questions below as thought bubbles above the heads of your people.

Inaugural Quadruple Aim Physician Leadership Retreat launching in Seattle, Washington, May 7 – 10, 2017 [Press Release]

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Learn More About the Retreat
and Secure Your Spot on the Early Bird Registration List
[ http://tinyurl.com/QuadAimLeader ]
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Burnout is rampant among American doctors. One recent survey shows 54% of practicing physicians suffering from at least one burnout symptom (1). Burnout’s pervasive negative effects include lower quality of care, patient satisfaction, higher error rates and an organizational culture of resistance and disengagement.

One of the causes of this modern epidemic is twenty years of single-minded industry focus on the Triple Aim – Cost, Quality and Population Health. In 2015 a group of healthcare leaders finally asked the obvious question, “How can our organizations provide high quality medical care if our people are burned out?” The answer revealed healthcare’s new Quadruple Aim. (2)

In these chaotic times a focus on this fourth aim – the health and wellbeing of all the people providing the care – will make the difference. When physician leaders learn the skills to reduce burnout and build a more supportive culture – actually living the Quadruple Aim – better care and satisfaction, fewer errors and more engagement will be the result, naturally and automatically.

TheHappyMD.com, Seattle, Washington 1/12/2017

TheHappyMD.com, the healthcare industry leader in burnout prevention training and coaching, announces the first Quadruple Aim Physician Leadership Retreat, May 7 – 10, 2017 in Seattle Washington.

2016 Year in Review at TheHappyMD.com [Press Release]

Burnout is rampant among American doctors, with recent studies showing as many as 54% of practicing physicians suffering from at least one symptom of this syndrome(1). Burned out doctors make more mistakes, provide lower quality care, get sued more often and have lower levels of patient satisfaction. (2)

The problem has worsened to the point that the CEO of the Mayo Clinic – John Noseworthy MD – recently advised that patients fire their doctor if they sense the physician is burned out, because it is “Not worth the risk of being treated by an impaired physician”. (3)

What should doctors and the organizations that employ them do to address this epidemic?

TheHappyMD.com, Seattle, Washington 1/5/2017

Dike Drummond MD, CEO and Founder of TheHappyMD.com announced today that he personally delivered the Burnout Proof Live Workshop to over 10,000 physicians, in 300 separate trainings, for 48 corporate clients in the calendar year of 2016.

This flagship workshop teaches the signs, symptoms, causes and effects of physician burnout. Attendees also learn how to recognize burnout in themselves and others and how to both reach out for and accept support.

“All physicians graduate with a gaping hole in their medical education around stress management and burnout prevention. Our workshop fills that hole in a public forum and starts to shift the culture of the organization.

Physician Burnout - The Fatal Flaws in the Burnout Survey Industry

The measurement of physician burnout is turning into a big business in the USA lately. Millions of dollars are changing hands for burnout, engagement and physician satisfaction surveys created and sold by some of the biggest medical groups and consulting organizations in the healthcare industry. Mayo, the Advisory Board, the MGMA come to mind immediately.

Look a short way into the future and you can see how physician burnout scores could easily be turned into a quality indicator and a hurdle the government and other payors could require for payment. It is a short stride to your physician burnout score becoming a prerequisite of logging onto the EMR system in your organization. 

Let's face it ... if they could put a chip in your gluteus maximus to measure burnout directly and electronically beam it to the scorecard on your CMO's desktop computer ... THEY WOULD.

In just one hour, answering these 10 questions can make 2017 your best year yet

In large part, your happiness in 2017 depends on the following thought experiment …

Imagine it is actually 12 months from now ... it is Christmas of NEXT Year ...
as you look back on your 2017 ...
you break out in a grin of satisfaction ... 
and say to yourself ... "wow, what a year" ...

What is driving this warm, happy feeling?

• What are the successes of 2016 (this year) you have been able to build on?
• What have you changed / accomplished / experienced / let go of in the year 2017?
• What are the old problems/challenges you have been able to solve - or simply let go of -for the first time?

What would it take to make 2017 YOUR Best Year Yet?

Take a single hour now to fill out the Physician's 2017 Breakthrough Process Worksheet -- and watch the difference it makes ...

Stop Physician Burnout - Book Review

The Canadian Society of Physician Leaders recently reviewed our book Stop Physician Burnout in their CJPL Journal ... in what I will characterize as glowing terms. 

It is great to see an official review of a self-published book like ours. We have over 25,000 copies in print at this point, helping doctors around the world build their burnout prevention strategy. It is about time an official body of some kind recognized the value of this approach. 

• Get your copy here
• Buy on Amazon.com here
• Use this link for orders of 3 or more copies- we can save you 40% on bulk shipments

Excerpts from the review:

Physician Leadership's Dirty Little Secret #1

In our work with physician leaders across the country, it has become clear that physician leadership and physician burnout share five distinct and invisible connections. No one talks about these risk factors - even in MBA training - so we have started calling them "Dirty Little Secrets".

If you are a physician leader and don't have the tools recognize and mitigate for these burnout connections ... you will struggle. So we created a new series of short, powerful trainings to help you avoid these traps that are built into the fiber of physician leadership. 

Here is the first in a five-part FREE video training series we are calling

Physician Burnout's Dirty Little Secrets
[ sign up for the whole series here ]

Physician Burnout - Stop Asking the Wrong Question

In this post you will learn a fundamental mistake all doctors (and physician leaders) make about burnout -- and how changing the questions you ask will make all the difference.

[HINT: Physician burnout is not a problem. When you stop looking for a solution you will see the simplicity of a burnout prevention plan that really works - for you, for your family and for your organization]

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I am often asked,
"What is the SOLUTION to Physician Burnout?"

On the surface it would seem a natural question for any doctor or physician leader to ask ... right? It would be swell if there was a solution to this issue -- the one thing you can do one time -- to make physician burnout go away.

Unfortunately, that question contains an hidden assumption that messes everyone up right from the start. 

Asking for a Solution assumes physician burnout is a Problem

That assumption is where doctors and physician leaders set themselves up for struggle. Here is the truth:

• Physician burnout is fundamentally NOT A PROBLEM
• There is NO SOLUTION
•  Asking that question will only lead you down a rabbit hole of dead ends and frustration

Physician Burnout VUCA and the Trump Effect

HINT: none of this is good for physician well being 

One of the core factors driving physician stress levels and physician burnout in the USA is the CHAOS in the healthcare marketplace.

What used to be a simple world of seeing patients and billing insurance has morphed into EMR's, Meaningful Use, Volume to Value, MACRA, the Affordable Care Act and a blizzard of mergers and acquisitions that have turned even the average 50 bed hospital into a major physician employer. Independence and autonomy are out the window and who knows what Big Brother will demand of us next.

This chaos is stressful and adds to the risk of physician burnout

It is hard to feel certain about the future when your crystal ball has gone dark. It is hard to feel confident about your practice and your career when you are getting a paycheck from the third different organization in the last 6 years -- as the big fish gobble the little fish in many market places.

A very similar perfect storm of accelerated change happened in the US military in the 1990's when guerrilla tactics and crazy things like IED's and body bombs displaced orderly tank battles on the modern battlefield. After all, how do you feel confident as a commander in the field when you never know what is coming around the next corner. 

Physician Burnout – British NHS Announces World’s First Government "Burnout Service"

The British National Health Service (NHS) has been having a very rough time lately. Despite always being mentioned as one of the top healthcare systems for cost effectiveness, they are fighting a running battle with rampant physician burnout and a near mutiny by providers. Here are just a few of the low points.

• Burnout rates are sky high
• The providers will strike the government every month for the rest of this year over an attempt to force a standard 7-day work week
• There is even an effort to get doctors to turn in their colleagues for burnout

Now the government is attempting a turnaround

Last week the NHS announced that beginning in 2017 it will spend £19.5 million ($24M USD) in 2017 to treat burnout in General Practitioners (GP’s) nationwide.

(Here is the full article on the announcement)

The NHS announcement said:

“The service is the world’s first nationally-funded health service of its kind for general practice, a clear signal of NHS England’s commitment to help retain a healthy and resilient workforce and in supporting GPs and GP trainees who wish to remain in or return to clinical practice after a period of ill health.”

The service is described as follows: