Healthcare providers – across both mental health and biomedical disciplines – represent some of the highest risk professionals in Western culture(s) for burnout and compassion fatigue. At the same time that they report being wholly-committed to (and loving) what they do, they are oftentimes overwhelmed with the intensity and/or chronicity of their caseloads, workplace and/or interdisciplinary politics, administrative demands, and tendencies to under-report personal struggles or seek help. In this presentation, empirically- and theoretically-conceptualized understandings of this problem, alongside research-proven strategies across multiple systems levels (clinical/provider systems, operational/administrative systems, and economic/care systems) to prevent and/or mitigate it, will be shared.

To begin, alarming scholarship that confirms the generally poor functioning of Western healthcare providers will be outlined. In synchrony with increased attention to self-care over the past 10+ years, investigators have shown that physicians’, nurses’, mental health providers’, and other care professionals’ struggles are getting worse (not better). This is true across indicators of physical health (e.g., insomnia, obesity), health behaviors (e.g., alcohol use disorders, poor work/life boundaries), mental health (e.g., depression, burnout, compassion fatigue, suicidality), social health (e.g., divorce, intimate partner violence), and work-related performance (e.g., late charting, low professionalism, medical errors).

Conventional (old) wisdom regarding the prevention and/or mitigation of burnout and compassion fatigue in health care has centered on the individual provider, only, and includes things that we all know are important – but usually do not do (e.g., sleep hygiene, physical activity, purposeful time management, appropriate boundary setting). New and innovative techniques and technologies (e.g., compassion fatigue / satisfaction tracking apps designed specifically for healthcare providers) are helping to promote better action, but they are not enough. Multi-systemic frames – i.e., those that pair individual work with team-based efforts (e.g., peer support, team huddles, community building) and responsive care system structures (e.g., strategic sequencing of work tasks, innovative charting and documentation platforms, peer/group supervision) will be introduced. The combination and purposeful integration of said frames will be outlined as more effective than any one solution.

All told: attention to our whole selves (biopsychosocial/spiritual health) is essential. To effectively practice what we preach – and thereby honor our own humanness and well-being alongside that of the patients and families we serve – we must move beyond insight(s) into multi-systemic and sustained action.

Articulate how health care providers are an especially high-risk population for burnout and compassion fatigue.

Describe novel ways to promote and sustain positive health behavior change in conventional self-care strategies practiced at the individual provider level (e.g., sleep hygiene, exercise).

Describe team-based efforts (e.g., peer support, team huddles, community building) and responsive care system structures (e.g., strategic sequencing of work tasks, innovative charting and documentation platforms, peer/group supervision) essential to preventing / mitigating burnout and compassion fatigue.