The Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act

Summary

The Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act in the USA aims to reduce and prevent suicide, burnout, and mental and behavioural health conditions among healthcare professionals. Healthcare professionals have long experienced high levels of stress and burnout, and COVID-19 has only exacerbated the problem. While helping their patients fight for their lives, many health care professionals are coping with their own trauma of losing patients and colleagues and fear for their own health and safety. This bill helps promote mental and behavioural health among those working on the frontlines of the pandemic. It also supports suicide and burnout prevention training in health professional training programs and increases awareness and education about suicide and mental health concerns among health care professionals.

Content

The Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act:

• Establishes grants for training health profession students, residents, or health care professionals in evidence-informed strategies to reduce and prevent suicide, burnout, mental health conditions, and substance use disorders. The grants would also help improve healthcare professionals’ well-being and job satisfaction.
• Seeks to identify and disseminate evidence-informed best practices for reducing and preventing suicide and burnout among healthcare professionals, training health care professionals in appropriate strategies, and promoting their mental and behavioural health and job satisfaction.
• Establishes a national evidence-based education and awareness campaign targeting healthcare professionals to encourage them to seek support and treatment for mental and behavioral health concerns.
• Establishes grants for employee education, peer-support programming, and mental and behavioural health treatment; health care providers in current or former COVID-19 hotspots will be prioritsed.
• Establishes a comprehensive study on health care professional mental and behavioural health and burnout, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on such professionals’ health.