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Surgeon General Issues Landmark Report with New Solutions to Combat Crippling Worker Burnout Issue
Fierce Healthcare | By Robert King
Healthcare worker burnout was a staggering issue for systems across the country even before the pandemic, and, now, a new report from the U.S. surgeon general hopes to help by boosting benefits and reducing administrative burdens.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, M.D., released a general advisory Monday surrounding worker burnout, an issue that was present before the pandemic but only worsened as COVID-19 has impacted systems. Murthy is pressing for collaboration among regulators, health systems, communities and other key stakeholders to take a “whole-of-society” approach to the problem.
“COVID-19 has been a uniquely traumatic experience for the healthcare workforce and for their families, pushing them past their breaking point,” Murthy said in a statement. “Now, we owe them a debt of gratitude and action. And if we fail to act, we will place our nation’s health at risk.”
Murthy’s advisory lays out a series of recommendations to combat burnout, which is likely to get worse with more than half a million registered nurses retiring by the end of the year and a shortage of more than 3 million low-wage health workers projected over the next five years. The Association of American Medical Colleges has also projected a shortage of 139,000 physicians by 2033.
[Click to read the recommendations], which come roughly a month after a new survey from the union National Nurses United showed major spikes in workplace violence at systems across the country.
The surgeon general advisories do not have any binding actions but are an attempt to call attention to a public health issue. |
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New Wage and Hour Division Resources for FMLA
At the Wage and Hour Division, we enforce the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which enables eligible workers to take up to 12 weeks of protected leave for mental health treatment for themselves or the care of qualifying family members (26 weeks to care for covered service members and certain veterans).
We are committed to supporting the mental health of workers and ensuring equitable access to job-protected leave through outreach and enforcement of the FMLA. New resources have been developed to assist in the compliance and implementation of FMLA provisions, and I encourage you to review those here:
For more information about the Family and Medical Leave Act, please visit our website. If you are interested in scheduling an outreach event or training webinar, please feel free to contact me so we can coordinate that together. |
Prioritizing Mental Health Care In America
NIHCM Foundation
By the end of 2021, Americans found themselves in one of the worst nationwide mental health crises in years. Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience a mental illness each year, or more than 50 million people. Unfortunately, less than half of the people in need ever receive the mental health care they require. Due to physician burnout, a workforce shortage, and poor funding, this country has long struggled with handling the growing mental health crisis and providing equitable access to behavioral health care. The mental health system in America may be largely broken, but conditions are ideal for transforming the system with scientific advances, improved coverage, and political consensus on the importance of mental health. Goals once thought to be long out of reach may soon be possible.
This infographic highlights the many challenges contributing to America’s mental health crisis as well as steps to improve and strengthen mental health care and the behavioral health industry and promote individual resiliency.
This infographic highlights the many challenges contributing to America’s mental health crisis as well as steps to improve and strengthen mental health care and the behavioral health industry and promote individual resiliency.
The attached infographic highlights the many challenges contributing to America’s mental health crisis as well as steps to improve and strengthen mental health care and the behavioral health industry and promote individual resiliency.
See Infographic |
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‘That’s Just Part of Aging’: Long Covid Symptoms Are Often Overlooked in Seniors
Kaiser Health News
Nearly 18 months after getting covid-19 and spending weeks in the hospital, Terry Bell struggles with hanging up his shirts and pants after doing the laundry.
About ‘Navigating Aging’
Navigating Aging focuses on medical issues and advice associated with aging and end-of-life care, helping America’s 45 million seniors and their families navigate the health care system.
To contact Judith Graham with a question or comment, click here.
Lifting his clothes, raising his arms, arranging items in his closet leave Bell short of breath and often trigger severe fatigue. He walks with a cane, only short distances. He’s 50 pounds lighter than when the virus struck.
Bell, 70, is among millions of older adults who have grappled with long covid — a population that has received little attention even though research suggests seniors are more likely to develop the poorly understood condition than younger or middle-aged adults.
Long covid refers to ongoing or new health problems that occur at least four weeks after a covid infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Much about the condition is baffling: There is no diagnostic test to confirm it, no standard definition of the ailment, and no way to predict who will be affected. Common symptoms, which can last months or years, include fatigue, shortness of breath, an elevated heart rate, muscle and joint pain, sleep disruptions, and problems with attention, concentration, language, and memory — a set of difficulties known as brain fog.
Ongoing inflammation or a dysfunctional immune response may be responsible, along with reservoirs of the virus that remain in the body, small blood clots, or residual damage to the heart, lungs, vascular system, brain, kidneys, or other organs.
Only now is the impact on older adults beginning to be documented. In the largest study of its kind, published recently in the journal BMJ, researchers estimated that 32% of older adults in the U.S. who survived covid infections had symptoms of long covid up to four months after infection — more than double the 14% rate an earlier study found in adults ages 18 to 64. (Other studies suggest symptoms can last much longer, for a year or more.)
Read Full Article |
White House Prepares to Ration Vaccines as Covid Funding Impasse Looms
A painful and foreboding reality is setting in for the White House as it enters a potentially dangerous stretch of the Covid fight: It may soon need to run its sprawling pandemic response on a shoestring budget.
Just two months after the administration unveiled a nearly 100-page roadmap out of the crisis, doubts are growing about Congress’ willingness to fund the nation’s fight. It has forced Biden officials to debate deep cuts to their Covid operation and game out ways to keep the federal effort afloat on a month-by-month basis.
Read more @ Politico
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