Workforce Well-Being and Joy in Work
Burnout, moral distress, moral injury, and compassion fatigue in the health care workforce continue to undercut well-being and mental health for health care workers, significantly contributing to retention challenges and staffing shortages, as well as leading to negative impacts on health care quality, workforce safety, patient safety, and patient experience.
Effective health care leaders at all levels seek to understand these key drivers of burnout and mental health struggles, partnering with health care workers on co-design and leading quality improvement efforts to address them.
The features of a thriving health care workforce are well understood: the most joyful, engaged, productive staff feel both physically and psychologically safe, perceive belonging, appreciate the meaning and purpose of their work, have some choice and control over their time, experience camaraderie with others at work, and perceive their work life to be fair and equitable.
Improvers can leverage proven methods for creating a positive work environment that creates these conditions and ensures the commitment to deliver high-quality care to patients, even in stressful times.
IHI aims to integrate workforce well-being, workforce safety, and patient safety, grounded in evidence and the science and methods of improvement, to ensure that every patient receives safe, reliable, effective, and equitable care from a fully-enabled health care workforce.
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Enhance Your Knowledge and Skills to Improve Workforce Well-Being
Training and Professional Development
Explore learning opportunities focused on improving workforce well-being and joy in work
IHI Open School
Build knowledge and skills to improve with IHI Open School online courses
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Free Resources and Tools to Improve Workforce Well-Being
Workforce Well-Being Resources
Explore tools, white papers, publications, insights, and other resources to support your efforts to improve workforce well-being and joy in work
Related Improvement Areas
Patient Safety
IHI aims to advance a total systems approach to safety, grounded in evidence and the science and methods of improvement, to ensure that every person receives safe, reliable, effective, and equitable care.
Workforce Safety
Health care workforce safety — physical, psychological, and emotional — is inextricably linked to patient safety, outcomes, and experience of care.
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Expertise in Improving Health and Health Care
Join Us at the IHI Forum, December 8–11
Dedicated improvement professionals from around the world are convening at the IHI Forum on December 8–11, 2024, to tackle health care's most pressing challenges. Please join us!
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