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1. NURS6247 Phoenix Nurse Burnout Issue in Healthcare
NURS6247 Phoenix Nurse Burnout Issue in HealthcareNURS6247 Phoenix Nurse Burnout
Issue in HealthcareRunning head: NURSE BURNOUT PRACTICE INTERVENTION PROJECT
Why Nurse Burnout is a Real Issue in Healthcare and What Organizations Can Do about It
Jesus G Rebolledo The University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley NURS 7302 LET Dr. Lilia A.
Fuentes 07/24/2019 1 NURSE BURNOUT PRACTICE INTERVENTION PROJECT 2
Introduction Nursing is a field that allows no margin for error. For nurses to provide
services that guarantee high-quality and patient safety, it is essential that they are at their
best physical, psychological, and physiological state. Unfortunately, nurses are susceptible
to physical, mental, and emotional strain that arises from working for long hours and their
inability to handle these pressures. This results in nurse burnout, which is defined as the
physical, emotional, and psychological stress or strain that affects nurses, and which leads
to dulled emotions, detachment, and low levels of motivation in one’s work (Van Bogaert,
Peremans. Van Heusden, Verspuy … Franck, 2017). This is a problem that affects both
nurses and patients. In nursing practice, the relationship and interaction between nurses
and patients are vital as it has a major influence on the quality and relevance of services that
these nurses offer. In this regard, research has shown that nurse burnout negatively affects
the satisfaction of both the nurses and the patient often leads to poor health outcomes and
high chances of errors (Hall, Johnson, Watt, Tsipa & O’Connor, 2016). Thus, it is important
that every healthcare facility strives to resolve any cases of nurse burnout as a way of
raising its quality of services and improving the welfare of the patient. Nurses encounter
many risks of burnout than most other professions. Watching the patients suffer, striving to
ensure the recovery of all patients, having busy schedules, putting others ahead of oneself,
and having to work for extended hours, among others, not only expose nurses to physical
strain and stress, but they also expose them to high risks of emotional and mental stress
(Ribeiro, Filho, Valenti, Ferreira, de Abreu … Ferreira, 2016). NURS6247 Phoenix Nurse
Burnout Issue in HealthcareIn the past, many healthcare organizations did not clearly
understand the concept, diagnosis, effects, and measures to address the problem of nurse
burnout. Despite increased research and awareness of the problem, Van Bogaert et al.
(2016) reports that many facilities still fail to mitigate the problem. In return, this
negatively affects service delivery and the welfare of the NURSE BURNOUT PRACTICE
INTERVENTION PROJECT 3 patients and the nurses alike. However, ongoing research and
increased attention in this field present healthcare providers with a solution and an
opportunity to design projects or programs that can address this problem. The purpose of

2. this practice intervention project (PIP) is to help healthcare organizations understand
nursing burnout, explore the significance, its characteristics, and identify this condition to
help prevent this phenomenon. With the use of Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) self-
assessment survey healthcare organizations can implement this tool to increase awareness
of who is at risk. NURS6247 Phoenix Nurse Burnout Issue in HealthcareORDER NOW FOR
CUSTOMIZED, PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPERSThe application of this survey will not only
empower organizations to learn to recognize and become aware but also rethink its
structure and examine recommendations to lessen employee exhaustion, depersonalization,
and aid in personal achievement development. Significance of the Problem Patient safety
and quality of care have always been guiding factors in nursing practice and other
healthcare fields. Unfortunately, these values have been ignored in the past, and they have
never been accorded the attention that they deserve. In 1999, a study report by the Institute
of Medicine (IOM) that was corroborated by many other studies showed that the healthcare
industry lacked the necessary measures to address the problem of patient safety. In its
report, IOM attributed between 44,000 and 98,000 annual deaths to preventable medical
errors (Makary & Daniel, 2016). Surprisingly, this number exceeded many of the leading
causes of death at the time despite medical errors not being recognized as a major cause of
death or an inhibitor of patient safety and quality care. As such, healthcare providers were
tasked with formulating measures that could uphold these two values in their practice
through the prevention of unnecessary medical errors. Nurse burnout is one of the key
inhibitors of quality services and patient safety as it directly inhibits the attachment
between nurses and the patients while also raising the chances of errors. As Ribeiro et al.
(2016), the emotional health of nurses is important as it enhances NURSE BURNOUT
PRACTICE INTERVENTION PROJECT 4 communication among themselves and between
themselves, physicians, and patients. In this case, detachment results in poor relations that
may negatively affect the welfare of the patients. This is more so the case in vital sections of
healthcare, such as primary care that requires personal engagement and interaction
between nurses and patients. Burnouts impair communication and collaboration among
healthcare providers. In this regard, nursing practice is a field that demands critical
concentration and collaboration among different parties. NURS6247 Phoenix Nurse
Burnout Issue in HealthcareAny breakdown in communication can lead to errors that could
be costly for a healthcare provider. Studies have shown that, besides the close to 98,000
patients who die due to preventable medical errors, between $73.5 and $98 billion are
directly associated with these errors each year (Makary & Daniel, 2016). The relevance of
nurse burnout in medical errors is too high as it is ranked as a key cause of these errors. For
instance, a recent study reported that addressing nursing and physician burnouts could
reduce medical errors by 50% (Panagiotis, Geraghty, Zhou, Hodkinson … Riley, 2019).
Addressing burnout among nurses and other healthcare professionals should thus be
prioritized in all healthcare settings as it could be a key solution to the reduction of
healthcare costs and medical errors as well as improvement of patient safety, quality of
care, healthcare outcomes, patient experiences, and satisfaction of the nurses and other
professionals. Burnout is one of the most prevalent problems among nurses and other
healthcare professionals. As reported earlier, there are numerous risks that nurses

3. encounter in their profession that exposes them to burnout. As such, many of them may
experience this problem at any one time if healthcare professionals do not adequately
monitor their practices and implement sufficient controls. A recent study showed extremely
high Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) scores of nurse burnout among 10.1% of the nurses
in Sao Paulo and a high propensity among 55.4% of all the nurses (Ribeiro, Filho, Valenti,
Ferreira … Ferreira, 2014). The same study also cited this problem as one of the reasons
that most of the nurses in these NURSE BURNOUT PRACTICE INTERVENTION PROJECT 5
regions are childless women past 35 years. While presenting their solutions to the
problems, the authors insisted that the prevention of nurse burnout should be prioritized as
it is more effective than other forms of management. These assertions are consistent with a
report by Hall et al. (2016) that termed nurse burnout as one that can easily turn into a
permanent problem if inadequately unaddressed. With the emergence of reliable tools to
test nurse burnout rates and potential solutions, healthcare organizations should work
collaboratively with the nurses as one of the ways to address nurse burnout and create an
improvement at both personal and organizational level. There are several studies that have
broken down this topic into the distinct forms of burnout. In this case, emotional exhaustion
has been found to vary from 28% to 31% depersonalization at 15% to 21% and low
personal accomplishment at from 31% to 39% (Monsalve-Reyes, San Luis-Costas, Gómez-
Urquiza, Albendín-García … Cañadas-De la Fuente, 2018; Pradas-Hernández, Ariza, Gómez-
Urquiza, Albendín-García, De la Fuente & Cañadas-De la Fuente, 2018). From these two
studies, it is clear that nurse burnout has an effect on both patient experience and the ability
of nurses. NURS6247 Phoenix Nurse Burnout Issue in HealthcareThis is in the sense that a
nurse will have poor performance while the patients will experience poor quality health
that is also of low safety standards. As such, addressing nurse burnouts could serve as a key
solution to both personal and professional problems in nursing practice, which could
eventually improve the healthcare sector from all areas. Nurse burnout is a significant issue
among nurses because it leads to detachments and dulled emotions among nurses. Also,
organizations must take nurse burnout with seriousness because it undermines motivation
among the nurses, leading to a sense of hopelessness among the nurse staff. Burnout
cascades to the patients and thus healthcare organizations must prioritize the quality of
healthcare provided to the patients (Jennings, 2016). A high rate of burnout among nurses
will thus lead to negative reviewed and feedback from patients to the NURSE BURNOUT
PRACTICE INTERVENTION PROJECT 6 low patient satisfaction with the quality of
healthcare they receive. Therefore, nursing burnout is an issue that must worry about all
stakeholders in the healthcare sector. Quality Measures Every program should have a set of
measures that should help in evaluating its effectiveness. In this practice intervention
project, the focus is on early peer education as a solution for nurse burnout. As has been
identified in the section above, this is a problem of great significance in nursing practice,
and that should be prioritized by all healthcare providers aiming at improving the
satisfaction of their staff, improving the quality of their services, enhancing patient safety,
and improving the general outcomes of care. However, every program that an organization
implements should be closely monitored against a set of goals and objectives to ensure that
it yields the desired results. The performance and quality measures should provide a clear

4. view of the improvements that have been achieved and its impact on various elements of
patient care. One of the most important quality measures is the National Academy of
Medicine (NAM). This is a non-profit agency that was widely known as the Institute of
Medicine (IOM) before it was renamed to NAM. This agency is an important source of data
regarding nurse burnout programs and particularly in relation to patient safety and the
occurrence of preventable medical errors. As mentioned earlier, research has shown that
when addressing the physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion known as burnout, this
could reduce medical errors by 50%. “To Err is Human,” which is a popular report
published by IOM attributed a maximum of 98,000 annual deaths to preventable medical
errors (Makary & Daniel, 2016). Data from the agency regarding the prevalence of medical
errors could thus be an important quality measure for peer education as a solution for
nurse burnout. The project will be guided by three critical quality measures of the MBI tool
alongside other measures like the prevalence of preventable errors, patient satisfaction,
absenteeism, NURSE BURNOUT PRACTICE INTERVENTION PROJECT 7 productivity, and
changes in the cost of care, among others. The three core MBI measures are emotional
exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization.NURS6247 Phoenix Nurse
Burnout Issue in HealthcareAs explained by Loera, Converso and Viotti (2014), emotional
exhaustion is measured through a series of nine items from the MBI scale that test the
emotional outcomes from one’s work. The peer education program’s outcomes will be
measured in the changes in the MBI scores of a nurse before and after its implementation.
On the other hand, depersonalization will be measured through a series of items along the
MBI scale that tests the impersonal response of a nurse towards the patients. The scores of
the nurses are expected to decline if the program is successful. Regarding the third measure,
the personal accomplishment of a nurse is important as it measures how competent nurses
consider themselves. According to Heeb and HabereyKnuessi (2014), this is particularly
important as it also helps to understand the perception that nurses have on their job, which
could then be used to improve their experience and satisfaction in their work. This measure
will thus be used for improvement in areas outside the burnout boundaries. Nurse burnout
is the mental physical and emotional state that nurses experience after chronic overwork
and a sustained lack of support and job fulfillment at their workplace. The symptoms of
nurse burnout include emotional and physical exhaustion having a low sense of personal
accomplishment at work, and cynic related to their work. Untreated burnout may advance
into clinical depression manifesting itself as unaddressed symptoms. The Center for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Center for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), and the American Nurses Association (ANA) would also be important quality
measures. These agencies track health outcomes and clinicians’ welfare data. They also fund
several research studies related to nurse burnout and its impact on health outcomes. Data
from these sources could be used together with results from the evaluation of nurse
burnout through the MBI scale.NURS6247 Phoenix Nurse Burnout Issue in
HealthcareEvaluation results that show nurse burnout rate that is higher than that NURSE
BURNOUT PRACTICE INTERVENTION PROJECT 8 recorded by the above agencies would be
an indication that an intervention program has failed. Additionally, related outcomes
including the prevalence of preventable health outcomes will also be analyzed against data

5. provided by these agencies. They are thus some of the most important quality measures in
the sector. Among the major ways through which nurse burnout may be addressed by first
of all studying and understanding the stressors that cause the burnout. Depending on
whether the cause of the nurse burnout is emotional, physical, or environmental stress, the
burnout should be addressed by solving the exhaustion among the nurses (Cañadas-De la
Fuente, Vargas, San, 2015). Once these symptoms of exhaustion are identified and
addressed before the nurse becomes overwhelmed, the nurse should be advised to take
remedial and break form the nurse activities to relieve self from such stressors. Recognizing
the warning signs would thus enable various agencies to initiate necessary intervention
measures to prevent the situation by facilitating the evaluation of nurse burnout through
the MBI scale (Jennings, 2016). Prioritizing authentic leadership will help in measuring the
strain of burnout, thus identifying the areas of stress that need attention. Giving the nurses
a positive wellness program will help the nurses to confide in professionals who can help
them overcome the burnout (Erickson & Grove, 2007). Nurses should also give priority to
their health and pay attention to control their health. Managing stressful emotion and
protecting one’s passion would also help nurses overcome burnout. Resilience, self-care,
recognizing triggers and stressors, as well as creating a strong relationship with co-workers
also help overcome burnout. Most nurses experience nurse burnout due to work-related
issues going by the findings of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Regularly, nurses work in an environment where they deal with life and death, thereby
facing an emotional strain of losing their patients. CMS (nd) also notes that the nurses may
experience burnout as a result of the NURSE BURNOUT PRACTICE INTERVENTION
PROJECT 9 emotional distress of helping the grieving family members to overcome the pain
of losing their loved one. Also, CMS (nd) notes that nurses in the emergency and critical care
department are the most affected group because they get overwhelmed with the stressful
environment which makes them susceptible to these burnout symptoms. NURS6247
Phoenix Nurse Burnout Issue in Healthcare