Caring for your staff during COVID-19
While much attention is focused on providing critical care to patients during the COVID-19 healthcare crisis, your practice’s staff may also need additional support to manage through this challenging time.
A study of more than 1,200 healthcare workers in China caring for COVID-19 patients found that 50 percent reported at least mild depression and more than one-third reported insomnia. This study highlights the importance of having an infrastructure in place to support your team.
To ensure that your practice is providing comprehensive support, consider the following key areas:
Awareness and monitoring
According to the CDC’s guidance on addressing stress during crisis situations, an important first step is to monitor your team’s behavior and identify signs of burnout. Common signs of burnout include:
- Sadness, depression, or apathy
- Feeling easily frustrated
- Blaming of others, irritability
- Lacking feelings, showing indifference
- Isolation or disconnection from others
- Poor self-care (hygiene)
- Feeling tired, exhausted or overwhelmed
The CDC also advises practice leaders to be on the lookout for signs of secondary traumatic stress, or reactions and symptoms resulting from direct exposure to traumatic events. These may include excessive worry or fear, being easily startled or “on guard,” or experiencing physical symptoms such as a racing heartbeat.
Using a buddy system can help prevent some of these symptoms from occurring. Pairing team members together reduces the amount of time spent alone and pairs can help monitor and support each other’s stress, workload and safety.
The American Medical Association (AMA) suggests conducting a five minute debrief at the end of each shift with care teams to stay connected and provide opportunities to engage. For staff members who may be quarantined at home, setting up peer support “connection groups” via video conferencing tools can help teams support each other and address ongoing challenges.
Strategies for support
Implementing practical strategies to manage workloads and reduce stress during this time is another key component of a support infrastructure. Some sites of care have reported that they are leveraging physicians or APPs who are at home to manage incoming calls and inboxes for those working in the office or providing telemedicine care. Using this method, practices can rotate staff members between working in the office and at home.
A common source of anxiety among healthcare providers is preventing the transmission of COVID-19 to their family members. To help alleviate some of these concerns, provide your staff with guidance on how to establish a routine for arriving home after a shift and share information about decontamination, including products and techniques. These conversations should be focused on reducing anxiety, minimizing misinformation and providing clear recommendations.
The National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder notes that preparedness and formal training can help staff members fight stress and create a sense of efficacy. In addition to training on preventing the transmission of the virus and screening patients, your staff may want to take part in planning or leading training exercises on topics such as managing limited resources, preparing for the needs of their families in the event they are quarantined, and practicing response roles.
Maintaining well-being
There are a wide variety of resources to help your team practice self-care and address some of the day-to-day stressors in their personal life during this uncertain time.
To help care for your staff’s mental health, share resources about apps and tools for meditation and mindfulness exercises. You may also want to consider having a therapist visit your practice or offer virtual sessions. Additionally, extending these resources to clinicians’ families may help to address some of the second-hand stress they will experience.
While these programs and protocols are particularly helpful during this global healthcare crisis, healthcare provider burnout is a common and well-documented occurrence. Implementing these strategies can help to reduce your staff’s stressors now and in the future.
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April 2020
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