The WCC Podcast: Confronting Burnout and Moral Injury

The US health workforce is in distress. Burnout and moral injury are on the rise, and the consequences for practitioners and patients are devastating. We need to fix it.

The Workplace Change Collaborative Podcast, funded by a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, explores the drivers and consequences of burnout and moral injury amongst health workers, and identifies practical strategies to improve their well-being.

Led by the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at George Washington University in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, AFT Healthcare, and Moral Injury of Healthcare, the group developed a national framework to explore the processes of burnout and moral injury and help identify strategies to reduce and address burnout, suicide, and mental health conditions, and enhance resiliency.

In this limited six-part series, host Wendy Dean, MD guides us through the many topics the Workplace Change Collaborative addresses including:

- Why burnout and moral injury are getting the attention of the US government, and why all of us should care about the well-being of our health workers
- The impact of burnout and moral injury on health workers and those they serve
- How we can empower this vital workforce
- How we can create change on an organizational level and empower leaders in those spaces
- Ways that everyone – patient, health worker, or policy maker - can advocate for change
- What we have learned since the project began, and what we see in the field moving forward.

The Workplace Change Collaborative is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration. The contents are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.

To learn more about moral injury, burnout, and what to do about both, access our interactive framework and additional resources on our website at wpchange.org.

The WCC Podcast is produced by Jill Ruby.