Preventing Burnout

The purpose of the Burnout Prevention Matrix is to provide tools for building a strategy to prevent burnout and maximize professional fulfillment for physicians and their practice. By focusing on work/wellness balance model, the guide avoids quick fix-it tactics and instead promotes long-term strategies for a burnout free practice.

This method presents a set of tools and outlines a four-quadrant matrix model to implement those tools. The tools include methods such as mindfulness meditation; refining practice leadership; scheduling time with family and friends; improving delegation and patient flow skills; mastering practice documentation systems; journaling; beginning a personal exercise program; and so on. The guide emphasizes a strategy that should be carefully determined and implemented by each physician along with the members of their practice to meet their specific needs.

Key Points

• Provides a concise strategy guide—written in a conversational, personal tone—to identify physician wellness issues
• Explains the nature of burnout and illustrates inaccuracy of defining burnout through the problem/solution model
• Focuses on developing a work/wellness balance strategy Offers a list of tools and a plan to implement those tools through an effective prevention strategy, customized for a physician’s practice and their personal life
• Illustrates a matrix model as a means to implement the burnout prevention strategy:

Burnout Prevention Matrix: PDF