Safety-I, Safety-II and burnout: how complexity science can help clinician wellness (June 2019)

Summary

The current crisis of clinician burnout is a complex problem. As rates of burnout (the workplace syndrome consisting of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and loss of meaning) reach disturbing levels among clinicians, we continue to struggle to understand how to address workplace suffering.

An under-examined area of burnout is how the increasing complexity of healthcare, combined with our tentative recognition of complexity science (the study of systems governed by interactions, dependencies and relationships), impacts the well-being of clinicians. 

Please note this article, published in BMJ Quality and Safety, is paywalled.