Organizational Contributions to Healthcare Worker (HCW) Burnout and Workplace Violence (WPV) Overlap: Is This an Opportunity to Sustain Prevention of Both?

The effects of Burnout in healthcare workers (HCW) are experienced by the worker, other staff, the institution and patients under their care on a daily basis. Workplace violence (WPV) has a spectrum of forms. In more extreme forms it generally is low frequency but has high impact when it occurs. Healthcare systems’ efforts to reduce Burnout are more likely to remain sustained since the impact is experienced daily and awareness is increasingly publicized. The efforts to reduce WPV are harder to sustain due to the lower frequency combined with daily competing administrative demands despite best intentions. Could efforts to reduce the overlapping organizational contributions to both HCW Burnout and WPV be a strategy to sustain prevention of WPV while preventing Burnout? A model of overlapping organizational contributions to HCW Burnout and WPV is built from supporting literature. Recommendations are made for leadership and management style interventions. Potential benefits would be higher quality and satisfaction in patient care by means of higher satisfaction in the delivery of care, recruitment and retention of excellent staff, retention of high quality institutional knowledge and reputation.