The complex issue of healthcare provider burnout has recently become a hot topic, especially among those who were on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the experiences of healthcare IT professionals who work behind the scenes to support healthcare systems are often overlooked or go completely unacknowledged. However, IT burnout is a very real, very debilitating phenomenon that can be just as concerning as provider burnout.
Learn more about IT burnout, what causes it, and whether you may be affected.
What Is IT Burnout and What Causes It?
IT professionals can experience burnout in the same way as any other professionals. Burnout occurs when a person is emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted from ongoing stress. For IT professionals, this stress usually stems from the constant demands of the job, leading to feeling overwhelmed and drained.
For IT employees in healthcare, these feelings can also be linked to more complex issues surrounding the healthcare environment. For example, in addition to the overwhelming workloads, inadequate resources, and constant bombardment with tech-related problems, healthcare IT workers can experience these issues:
Working Within a High-Pressure Environment
As the healthcare system leans more on technology-based care, this places further pressure on IT professionals. These systems need to be highly reliable and available 24/7, and any downtime can disrupt patient care, cause delays, and potentially lead to life-threatening failures. The pressure associated with healthcare IT can outstrip the pressure faced by many other IT fields.
Healthcare Has Complex Systems and Regulations
To effectively support the healthcare system, IT professionals need to understand medical terminology, clinical workflows, and the regulations that govern them, including HIPAA compliance. HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, protects patient privacy and security.
This means when working on online systems to manage patient care via electronic health records (EHR), IT staff need to know about industry security measures and optimal practices. Even once they have a robust understanding of current regulations, IT professionals need to stay continually informed on new regulations that come from both federal and state agencies.
Constant Change and Innovation
Healthcare IT is a fast-paced field that never stops evolving. To stay ahead, IT professionals must remain vigilant and continuously learn about emerging technologies and trends. If they decide to implement new technologies, they also need to assess the potential risks, like data breaches and system failures, beforehand.
Lack of Recognition and Appreciation
Like many critical support employees who operate outside patient and provider purview, the work of healthcare IT professionals tends to go unnoticed. Some may feel frustrated with this, especially when they put in long hours and respond to stressful situations. It can be demoralizing to work in an environment where you are not acknowledged, and over time, this can build up and lead to decreased job performance and employee turnover.
Lack of Work-Life Balance
IT professionals work long hours, especially when they have complex projects in the pipeline. These projects usually require extensive planning and implementation, leading to working after hours, remaining on call, and even working through the weekend. While remote working offers more flexibility, it can also mean that the lines between work and personal life blur. Some remote staff may find it difficult to disconnect from work and relax.
How Do You Know If You Are Experiencing Burnout?
While burnout can manifest differently for everyone, you might be showing signs of burnout if you are experiencing any of these symptoms.
Behavioral and Emotional Burnout Symptoms
Many symptoms of burnout are behavioral or emotional in nature, including:
- Feeling cynical or critical of work situations
- Becoming easily irritated or impatient with others
- Having trouble focusing on tasks
- Withdrawing from social situations
- Feeling a lack of fulfillment from accomplishments
- Feeling disheartened or disillusioned about your job
- Turning to substances to cope with stress
- Questioning your abilities and feeling like a failure
Physical Burnout Symptoms
Ongoing emotional symptoms of burnout can quickly turn physical, such as:
- Feeling consistent fatigue
- A noticeable decrease in productivity
- Changes in eating or sleeping habits
- An increase in headaches
- An increase in digestive issues like stomach aches, constipation, or diarrhea
- Tightness or discomfort in your chest
- Feeling like your heart is racing or skipping beats
- Aches and pains throughout your body
- High blood pressure
How Burnout Impacts Your Health
As you can see from the symptoms listed above, burnout can affect you both physically and emotionally. This can have far-reaching and negative consequences for emotional, mental, and physical well-being.
Watch for any of these changes in yourself or anyone on your team:
- Emotional and Mental Signs – Burnout can bring an increased risk of depression and anxiety, difficulty concentrating, a loss of motivation, and negative thoughts. These can lead to substance abuse, impaired decision-making, reduced creativity, social withdrawal, and other serious mental health problems.
- Physical Signs – Burnout not only impacts your mental and emotional health, but it can take a toll on your body too. When you’re constantly stressed and overworked, you might find yourself tossing and turning at night, waking up with a pounding headache, or feeling that familiar knot in your stomach.
If you ignore the signs of burnout, things will only get worse. Over time, burnout can lead to issues such as heart disease or diabetes. Your immune system may weaken, meaning you are more susceptible to colds and other illnesses. You might also begin experiencing chronic pain or digestive issues.
How Burnout Impacts Healthcare Providers
Burnout impacts not only IT professionals but healthcare employees as well. When IT staff are overworked, stressed, or have trouble staying motivated, it can create a ripple effect across the organization.
Quality and Efficiency Issues
Burned-out IT staff may lead to more frequent system outages, slow response times, and data security risks. When compounded, these issues disrupt patient care, delay diagnoses, and hinder communication. Sometimes, innovation and adaptability may be stalled, and patient care and operation efficiency may become delayed because staff just don’t have the bandwidth to implement new technologies.
HR and Patient Relations Issues
Stressed IT staff can impact healthcare workers as well, affecting collaboration. A strain on work relationships and teamwork can trickle down to the patients, who will experience a decrease in care quality.
Cost Issues
High levels of IT burnout can lead to increased operational costs. This can occur as the result of high turnover rates, leading to recruitment, training, and onboarding costs. Employee turnover also tends to disrupt the already high demands of ongoing operations. Additionally, frequent system outages and security breaches require expensive emergency fixes. Conversely, proactive management is a far more cost-effective solution.
How to Fight IT Professional Burnout
Handling burnout at work requires a proactive response. Here’s how to start with small steps and work towards significant changes in your workplace.
Foster Open Communication
Whether you are a team leader, a healthcare organization owner, or an IT employee, prioritizing open communication is key. IT team leaders should prioritize open and honest communication with their staff. Employees may feel uneasy when information is withheld, and their team leaders do not communicate with them. Employees are more likely to feel valued in their roles if they feel confident approaching their team leaders with feedback or issues.
Provide Resources
Ensure your staff knows about their resources. This could include Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), training or workshops, wellness programs, time-off policies, and flexible work arrangements. If you are an IT employee, inquire about the resources available to you and make a commitment to yourself to utilize them if needed.
Encourage Work-Life Balance and Offer Flexibility
Prioritize the things outside of work that can improve your physical and mental health. If you’re a team leader, lead by example when it comes to work-life balance. This can help ensure the team takes care of themselves and allows time for exercise, family, and relaxation. Working from home or other adjustments to the work schedule can also help prevent burnout.
Take a Break
Taking a break is a simple way to fight burnout. Short, frequent breaks are a game-changer for many people. Use this time to rest your eyes, stretch, take a walk, or practice mindfulness. Use your lunch break to disconnect from work and eat a healthy meal.
Offset Employee Tasks
If employees are constantly overburdened with heavy schedules, this can quickly lead to burnout. If you’re an employee, take the time to discuss the potential of adjusting the schedule with your organization. If you’re a team leader or healthcare organization owner and this becomes a constant issue within your organization, we recommend turning to Healthcare ITSM to provide support.
Healthcare ITSM Has Solutions
At Healthcare ITSM, we understand how overwhelming it can be to experience burnout. Unfortunately, burnout can be contagious, quickly spreading to others on your team. Before this issue impacts the entire healthcare organization, contact Healthcare ITSM and learn about how we can alleviate your staff’s stress and workload and help your organization thrive.
Outsource Ongoing Managed Healthcare IT Services
We understand that IT services management is not a one-time project but is done through ongoing support to continually adapt and optimize your operations. Healthcare ITSM provides comprehensive, ongoing managed IT services tailored to your system’s specific needs. Our holistic approach provides continuous management, monitoring, and improvement of your IT systems and infrastructure.
We can customize and scale our IT solutions to fit your needs, including key services such as:
- IT help desk services
- On-site support and project management
- Remote support
- Backup and recovery solutions
- Server and hardware management
- Training and support
- Security solutions
- Ongoing updates
- Network management
Learn more about our Ongoing Managed Healthcare IT Services
Break Fix Services
There are times when technology can go wrong, but when it comes to healthcare, outages or other issues can become dangerous. Our Break Fix Services provide critical support in the event of technological disruptions within your organization.
Our professionals are equipped to handle issues such as:
- Software errors
- Hardware failure
- Network issues
- System access issues
- Lost or corrupted data
- Security attacks
- Natural disasters or accidents
- Compliance violation recovery
Healthcare ITSM has on-demand support if you are facing a technology system disaster. You can rely on our dedicated staff to take some of the pressure off your team and get your operations up and running again so you can continue serving your patients.
Learn more about our Break Fix Services
Other Ways Our Services Can Support Your Team
Our proactive approach to IT services goes beyond the traditional. Our professionals can lighten your team’s load through the following:
Automation Tools
Automation tools are designed to streamline and optimize those repetitive tasks and workflows that may be burning out staff. This means freeing them up from mundane and error-prone jobs. Automating some processes can increase productivity, enhance accuracy, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.
By relieving employees of tedious tasks, automation can also boost job satisfaction and motivation and empower staff through more rewarding jobs.
Workforce Enablement
Workforce enablement is about implementing strategies, tools, and practices to equip staff with the necessary resources to enhance their job performance. Within healthcare, this means providing healthcare professionals and staff with the systems and support to deliver excellent patient care and ensure smooth operations.
Healthcare ITSM can support workforce enablement by providing access to technology and tools, ensuring employees have support and resources, providing training and development, improving communication, and fostering a positive work culture through inclusivity, accessibility, and boosting morale.
Proactive Monitoring and 24/7 Support
Proactive, 24/7 monitoring enables IT professionals to detect and resolve potential issues before they cause system failures or unplanned outages. Catching problems before they escalate into crises can help reduce staff stress. This leads to a better work-life balance, increased job satisfaction, and staff empowerment, as they feel more in control.
Compliance and Security Solutions
Healthcare ITSM’s services help ensure your systems stay compliant and secure. Healthcare networks are prime targets for cyberattacks because of the amount of valuable information they contain. In 2023, 725 large security breaches in healthcare were reported to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Our services will implement the most advanced security protocols and firewalls and monitor for suspicious activity and threats, alleviating the constant vigilance and stress on your team that comes with it, especially if your resources and budget are limited.
Don’t Let Burnout Impact Your Team, Take Steps Towards IT Health
Burnout is not just a personal issue. It can quickly become a much larger problem among a team and the entire healthcare system. When healthcare IT professionals are overwhelmed and stressed, most of the time decreased productivity, increased errors, and higher rates of burnout come with it. This will impact patient care and the overall efficiency of the healthcare organization.
Don’t let this happen to your organization. Learn more about how Healthcare ITSM can relieve some pressure on your team with our IT services and packages.
Contact us today for a free consultation and to discover how our services can help you reduce stress, increase efficiency, and create a more sustainable, productive environment.
Sources
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (n.d.). Worker fatigue. U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.osha.gov/worker-fatigue
- World Health Organization. (2019, May 28). Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International classification of diseases. https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases
- Kang, H., Jeong, S. M., & Han, K. (2023). Factors influencing occupational burnout among healthcare workers. Journal of Occupational Health, 65(5). https://doi.org/10.1002/1348-9585.12345 [PMCID: PMC10508863]
- Mayo Clinic. (2023). Burnout: Symptoms, causes, and management. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/burnout/art-20046642
- HIPAA Journal. (n.d.). Security breaches in healthcare. https://www.hipaajournal.com/security-breaches-in-healthcare/
- University of Utah Health. (2021, June). Are you burned out? https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/2021/06/are-you-burned-out
- Leiter, M. P., Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (2015). Burnout and health in medical professionals: A review. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 20(3), 286–294. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000038 [PMCID: PMC4384854]
- Mayo Clinic Press. (n.d.). Breaking down burnout in the workplace. https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/mental-health/breaking-down-burnout-in-the-workplace/
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