Teamwork climate, safety climate, and physician burnout: A national, cross-sectional study (14 March 2024)

Summary

The last two decades have seen substantial advancement in the practice of team-based, safe care delivery. In parallel, burnout has been recognised as prevalent among US doctors and influenced by workplace structure and experiences. This study assessed US doctors’ perceptions of team-based care delivery and safety climate within their institutions and how these domains were associated with burnout.

Content

Key findings

• Higher ratings of both teamwork climate and safety climate were associated with lower odds of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and burnout.

• Doctors in academic medical centres as compared to private practice had lower odds of depersonalisation and overall burnout when controlling for teamwork climate and safety climate.

The authors argue that the results underscore the need for ongoing efforts to enhance teamwork and promote attitudes and practices related to safe care delivery, to benefit both patients and the care team. They highlight that their findings can be translated to actionable steps to enhance well-being in doctors across specialties and settings.