Physician Burn Out a Public Health Crisis

Physician burnout now a public health crisis According to a new report by Massachusetts doctors, “physician burnout has reached alarming levels and now amounts to a public health crisis that threatens to undermine the doctor-patient relationship and the delivery of health care nationwide.”

The report “portrays a profession struggling with the unyielding demands of electronic health record systems and ever-growing regulatory burdens. It urges hospitals and medical practices to take immediate action by putting senior executives in charge of physician wellbeing and by giving doctors better access to mental health services.

The report also calls for significant changes to make health record systems more user-friendly.” It also cites the complex “federal reporting requirements and insurance company rules” as reasons why 50 to 78 percent of doctors experience burnout.