Retain, reengage, and reimagine

As clinicians care for patients, they often find themselves juggling workplace demands and struggling to be successful in their roles while maintaining healthy work/life balance. The pandemic multiplied these complexities, bringing with it longer hours, supply shortages, and increased workloads. As a result, many clinicians have left the healthcare workforce. As a result, 334,000² physicians, NPs, PAs, and other clinicians left the workforce in 2021 due to retirement, burnout, and other pandemic related stressors, leaving an overwhelming 85%³ of health system leaders say staffing challenges will have a major impact on their 2023 strategy. Talent attrition further pressures health care organizations bottom line, as research shows that Hospital turnover costs average 150% of a healthcare employee’s salary³ and increase contract labor cost. With high turnover and margin pressure, improving clinician experience is more critical now than ever.

Today’s clinicians are in a position of needing to adapt to changes in technology, expectations for caregiving, and an evolving industry. They face a steep technology learning curve with exponential technology change and care delivery innovations without training or user-friendly interfaces. Patients have different expectations of care that may widen the caregiver’s scope of responsibilities. Meanwhile, “The Great Resignation,” other career opportunities, and changes in the patient population may have widened the nurse’s scope of responsibilities.

Clinicians play an essential role in nurturing patient health and creating value for the organization, but the work itself comes with significant emotional, physical, and mental demands. Daily scheduling can be unpredictable and irregular, and rewards package are not competitive, where clinicians feel unrecognized for their achievements. Health care organizations need to address work/life sustainability and the well-being of staff separate from their patients. Roles need to be reimagined to leverage market-leading practices to create capacity and improve the experience at work.

Clinicians often feel unsupported and stretched too thin in the current health care environment, especially when leaders are unable to provide support or motivation. Career development and mobility is often unclear and growth opportunities within the organization uncertain. Teaming priorities may be misaligned which can lead to communication barriers and operational inefficiencies. Overall, the challenges health care is facing have created an unhealthy “new normal” leading to nurse attrition.