This New National Report on Burnout Echoes What I've Been Saying
For two years, I’ve been standing in front of healthcare leaders and teams saying the same thing: burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s a predictable outcome of a broken system.
Now, a major voice in healthcare is echoing that truth. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s new publication, Guiding Principles for Improving Health Care Workforce Well-Being, confirms what many of us have known from experience: resilience alone won’t save us. We have to change the culture.
If you’re a healthcare leader trying to retain your people, or a professional struggling to stay afloat, I invite you to read this document. And if you’ve read my book, Let’s Talk About Healthcare Burnout: A Prevention and Recovery Guidebook, you’ll recognize a familiar voice echoing through IHI’s findings.
Here are a few powerful points of overlap that jumped out at me:
1. Burnout Isn’t a Character Flaw. It’s a System Failure. And we need better language.
The IHI puts it plainly: burnout, moral injury, and compassion fatigue are not the same—and none of them are solved by telling people to be more “resilient.” One quote in particular hit home:
“Rather than addressing the work cultures that lead to moral injury, burnout, and high turnover, many in the workforce are expected to be resilient… [which] can trivialize the intense, painful, and profound efforts required to survive trauma in work environments that neglect employee wellness.”
That’s a powerful reminder to leaders: if your staff is struggling (and so many of them are), your wellness initiative shouldn’t be asking them to “bounce back.” It should be redesigning the parts of the system that broke them.
2. We Can’t Fix Burnout Without Leaders in the Room
One of the most aligned messages between this report and my work is the idea that leadership must engage personally in the work of healing the culture. Well-being isn’t just a staff issue, it’s a leadership issue. IHI’s examples of retreats that included senior leaders, nurses, and providers in the same room reflect what I’ve seen in my coaching and keynotes: when leaders show up vulnerably, change begins.
3. Belonging and Trust Are Not Buzzwords—They’re Burnout Prevention Tools
Whether I’m coaching a department head or presenting to an entire hospital system, I emphasize the same truth: people don’t burn out in places where they feel safe, heard, and connected. The IHI report backs this up with frameworks like “Listen-Sort-Empower” and practical tools to elevate frontline voices. Their conclusion? If your staff doesn’t trust you, your wellness program isn’t working.
4. We Need a Both/And Strategy
Perhaps most compelling was the report’s call for a dual approach: organizational change and individual support. I couldn’t agree more. We need structural shifts—like workload adjustments, policy changes, and cultural reboots, but we also need resources for people trying to survive today. That’s why my work includes both personal burnout recovery plans and leadership tactics. We can't afford to choose one over the other.
If you haven’t read Guiding Principles for Improving Health Care Workforce Well-Being from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, I recommend giving it a look—especially if you’re serious about improving clinician well-being, reducing turnover, and restoring a sense of purpose across your teams.
And if reading it sparks something in you, whether you’re a burned-out professional or a decision-maker ready to lead change, let’s talk. My book, Let’s Talk About Healthcare Burnout, is a great place to start. But real change begins in conversation.
Let’s start one.
