Burnout, moral distress, moral injury, and compassion fatigue in the health care workforce continue to undercut well-being and mental health for health care workers, significantly contributing to retention challenges and staffing shortages, as well as leading to negative impacts on health care quality, workforce safety, patient safety, and patient experience.

Effective health care leaders at all levels seek to understand these key drivers of burnout and mental health struggles, partnering with health care workers on co-design and leading quality improvement efforts to address them.

The features of a thriving health care workforce are well understood: the most joyful, engaged, productive staff feel both physically and psychologically safe, perceive belonging, appreciate the meaning and purpose of their work, have some choice and control over their time, experience camaraderie with others at work, and perceive their work life to be fair and equitable.

Improvers can leverage proven methods for creating a positive work environment that creates these conditions and ensures the commitment to deliver high-quality care to patients, even in stressful times.

IHI aims to integrate workforce well-being, workforce safety, and patient safety, grounded in evidence and the science and methods of improvement, to ensure that every patient receives safe, reliable, effective, and equitable care from a fully-enabled health care workforce.