Culture & Leadership | Global Perspective

Gratitude: A Glimmer of Sunshine in the Covid Storm

Most frontline healthcare workers have reported being unhappy in their jobs for some time. Studies published before the pandemic indicated that 80% of emergency nurses and 65% of emergency physicians displayed one or more hallmark signs of burnout – compassion fatigue, cynicism, and inadequacy. Nurses who suffer from burnout experience mental and emotional exhaustion, making them feel detached from their peers and their patients and less engaged at work. Asking any nurse or doctor why they wanted to go into healthcare usually results in the consistent answer, “To help people.” A Medscape 2021 survey of 18,000 doctors revealed that the most rewarding part of their job was “knowing that I’m making the world a better place.”

Unfortunately, the second year of the Covid pandemic ended with emergency department volumes 20% above baseline and nurse staffing 20% below due to some retiring early and others transitioning to less-demanding jobs.

Emergency departments and their waiting rooms are packed because of increased patient volume and decreased throughput, resulting in an overly stressed environment. On top of these suboptimal circumstances, nurses have also become subject to a norm of incivility whereby verbal abuse is common and physical harm can sometimes occur. In essence, emergency departments under duress can be highly unsafe places.
 
Most frontline healthcare workers have reported being unhappy in their jobs for some time. Studies published before the pandemic indicated that 80% of emergency nurses and 65% of emergency physicians displayed one or more hallmark signs of burnout – compassion fatigue, cynicism, and inadequacy. Nurses who suffer from burnout experience mental and emotional exhaustion, making them feel detached from their peers and their patients and less engaged at work.
 
Though burnout cannot be shaken off, frontline workers can be helped by building up resiliency. Research shows that gratitude can reduce burnout. One study found this to be particularly true with emergency room nurses. Gratitude improves the ability to manage stress, increases a sense of self-confidence, boosts job satisfaction, and improves overall wellbeing.
The DAISY Foundation is a non-profit organization that leverages positive feedback to foster healthy work environments. Their work has demonstrated that communicating patient gratitude can remind nurses why they went into nursing in the first place – to help people through illness and injury.
 
Even in these more challenging times, most patients still appreciate the care they receive. By featuring patient gratitude, emergency departments can create a workplace culture that shows they value the wellbeing of their nurses. Collecting compliments and positive feedback from patients the day after their ambulatory visits is a process that can be automated and then shared with frontline workers.
 
Below is an example of a Gratitude Report that produced explicit praise for emergency department nurses during the height of the pandemic. This report can be posted on bulletin boards and shared at daily huddles or department meetings. The number of callouts and recognition of all the hard work put in by the nursing staff is not merely noteworthy; it boosts morale.
 

In addition to helping diminish the feeling of burnout, regular delivery of praise is also an effective retention strategy. Even more important than salary in most cases, feeling needed and appreciated plays an integral role in job performance and care quality.

Both expressing and receiving gratitude can inspire frontline workers to be happier, kinder and remember why they become medical professionals in the first place

Author Bio:

Tom Scaletta, MD, is a practicing emergency physician board certified in clinical informatics and past president of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. To address next-day blind spots in patient wellbeing and experience, Tom founded Auscura, a technology company focusing on automating patient communication. The platform was described in the Journal of Emergency Nursing as “the evolution of ED callbacks,” and its Gratitude Reportis a valuable feature.

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