Review of the Professional and Academic Literature
Leadership Practices
An interesting assessment area for improving healthcare services is the Safe Hospital Initiative introduced by World Health Organization to ensure facilities continue to assist with emergencies and disasters (Bass et al., 2019). This framework is relevant to the study because it offers a comparison point to help understand why the WHO is confident with the Safe Hospital Initiative and whether it can reduce burnout rates.
The employee engagement framework introduces true inspiration to employees where a lack of it results in a disconnect among leaders and workers (Sultan et al., 2020).
The COVID 19 pandemic has affected various institutions because most medical facilities did not have a preparation model for their healthcare workers that would have ensured flawless transition into emergency care for COVID 19 victims (Khasne et al., 2020). The leaders should lead the team through change and make goals public.
Burnout continues to be a significant challenge due to the leaders’ lack of effective strategies in addressing issues that expose healthcare workers to professional burnout (Lasalvia et al., 2021).
The lack of strategic leadership strategies is a significant threat to professional burnout among care providers during the pandemic (Jalili et al., 2021).
Policies have a significant relationship with the performance of healthcare workers because they allow leaders to create the desired work environment (Sultan et al., 2020).
A report indicates that 35% to 54% of healthcare workers experience burnout because none of the six goals provided by the National Academy of Medicine offer proper staffing ratios to the medical facilities as part of their initiative to create and establish practitioner well-being (Vuong, 2020).
According to research, a good approach for reducing employee burnout is providing stress management interventions, offering social support, engaging the workers in decisions, allowing the employees to design and craft their work environment, and introducing high-quality performance management strategies (Gabriel & Aguinis, 2021).
The Problem
The general problem is healthcare leaders’ failure to develop strategic frameworks in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic resulting in increased burnout among healthcare professionals.
According to Jalili et al. (2021), because the leaders failed to develop a strategic framework, there is an increased professional burnout among healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients.
In a recent study, Khasne et al. (2020) found that many healthcare professionals blamed their leaders for a lack of preparedness to deal with COVID19, which resulted in mental strain for the caregivers.
A similar study by Lasalvia et al. (2021) revealed that burnout among healthcare staff members during the pandemic was an issue of concern. Still, leaders had not done enough to mitigate the adverse implications.
Sultana et al. (2020) support this issue by stating that burnout is a major occupational problem among healthcare providers, and leaders have a critical role in developing intervention measures.
The specific problem to be addressed is evaluating the senior healthcare leaders within the south-eastern United States to effectively develop adequate responses to COVID 19, resulting in a potential increased burnout among healthcare professionals.
Concepts
The Role of Leadership
The pandemic has led to increased emotional and physical exhaustion among healthcare professionals due to the increased COVID 19 infection rates globally (Cotel et al., 2021).
Leadership plays an integral role in ensuring the smooth running of any given organization (Cotel et al., 2021).
The pandemic has exposed the gaps in the quality of leadership needed to run healthcare facilities (Sharifi et al., 2021).
As a result of inefficiency in leadership within the health sector, cases of healthcare professionals experiencing burnout have drastically increased (Sharifi et al., 2021).
Effective and efficient leadership is essential, ensuring various issues such as professional burnout do not affect the quality of health care services rendered to the patients (Anthony-McMann et al., 2017).
Burnout within Health Care Professionals
Effective and efficient leadership within the organization caters to the psychological welfare of its human resource (Sharifi et al., 2021).
The massive loss of patients and healthcare professionals has led to fatigue and burnout of healthcare workers (Sharifi et al., 2021).
Cotel et al. (2021) demonstrate that 50% of medical professionals have experienced exhaustion due to the COVID 19 pandemic.
Shortages in Healthcare Professionals in Relations to COVID 19
The outbreak of COVID 19 has exposed the acute shortage of healthcare providers within the healthcare system (Dall’Ora et al., 2020).
The influence of COVID 19 on the safety of healthcare providers cannot be underestimated; hence, the burnout experienced by healthcare providers is of national concern, which has caused massive shortages within the healthcare system (Dall’Ora et al., 2020).
Leadership within the Organization
The healthcare organization has lost income due to non-emergency and specialty treatment cancellations due to leadership decisions (Dall’Ora et al., 2020).
Some of the vital aspects to be deliberated include the role of supervisors of healthcare institutions in causative to the cause of healthcare professionals’ burnout (Dall’Ora et al., 2020).
Developing a clear insight into the influence COVID 19 has on healthcare professionals’ burnout can positively inspire positive human resource management (Cotel et al., 2021).
To fully effect the necessary changes and help the doctors overcome the challenges of the pandemic, employee engagement is essential (Cotel et al., 2021).
Effective Leadership
The techniques needed to address the concept of employee relations and job satisfaction through incentive programs motivate employees to work and improve their welfare while in the workplace (Anthony-Mcmann et al., 2017).
To successfully engage in employee engagement, leaders can adopt numerous strategies and programs to ensure employees are conversant with their roles, hence reducing the cases of burnout (Cotel et al., 2021).
Leadership is instrumental in employee engagement as it facilitates a continuous chain of communication regarding the issues that lead to burnout in healthcare workers (Sultana et al., 2020).
The absence of leaders’ attention to healthcare staff leads to misunderstanding and work-related strain, resulting in burnout (Sultana et al., 2020).
Theories
Job Demands–Resources Theory (JD-R)
Job Demands- Resource Theory argues that the workload on an employee affects their stress levels (Cotel et al., 2021).
When the demands of the work increase, stress levels increase simultaneously, leading to work burnout (Cotel et al., 2021).
Maslach’s Theory
Maslach’s theory connects how using resources could help reduce burnout in the research framework (Morgantini et al., 2020).
Maslach proposed a framework for predicting the occurrence of burnout. The framework is called Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) (Dall’Ora et al., 2020).
According to the framework, some of the critical components that contribute to burnout are as follows: extreme assignment, negative co-existence with the community, lack of motivation, and lack of resource control (Morgantini et al., 2020).
Conservation of Resources Theory
The Conservation of Resource Theory provides the necessary parameters to enhance the well-being of healthcare workers, including vitality, the working environment conditions, and the tools of the profession (Prapanjaroensin et al., 2017).
The Conservation of Resource Theory proposes three significant resources for healthcare workers: energy, conditions of work objects that workers interact with, and one’s characteristics (Prapanjaroensin et al., 2017).
In line with the WHO (World Health Organization), the discussion of the Conservation Resource Theory defines burnout as the lack of energy or fatigue, pessimism in the workplace, or leaving one’s profession (Morgantini et al., 2020).
Actors
Health care professional
The health care professional is the main subject of this study. They need to identify how their work affects their mental health to seek help to prevent burnout (Lasalvia et al., 2021).
Burnout is a global health concern for nurses, physicians, and clinicians caused by stress in the workplace and not appropriately managed (Sharifi et al., 2021).
Burnout manifests itself in three forms: fatigue or energy loss, pessimism about the job or mental distraction from work, and reduced professional effectiveness (Sharifi et al., 2021).
Healthcare managers/ Administrator
This actor has the role of employing and assigning duties. They also make available resources required by healthcare workers, like protective gear (Sultana et al., 2020).
Patient / Consumer
Patient welfare is adversely affected when the service provider’s quality of health and safety is constrained by burnout (Sharifi et al., 2021).
The patient is negatively affected when the health and safety of the healthcare worker are not guaranteed. Nurse burnout may increase the risk of medical error, which negatively impacts patient health (Lasalvia et al., 2021).
The constant death, the suffering, and the need to sympathize with customers who have admitted patients also cause burnout in the health care providers (Sharifi et al., 2021).
Constructs
The Role of Stakeholders in Dealing with Healthcare Professional Burnout
The researcher will determine if the lack of a proper COVID19 preventive framework is the primary contributor to burnout healthcare providers experience during the pandemic (Jalili et al., 2021).
Determine if health care leaders understand the meaning of a practical structure necessary to mitigate COVID19 without causing burnout among the staff members (Khasne et al., 2020).
Creation of a Conducive Working Environment for the Employees
Creating a conducive working environment for healthcare service providers is one of the most effective approaches to professional burnout (Morgantini et al., 2020).
Health care leaders can implement a reliable framework to ensure staff members are sufficient to cater to the rising number of positive cases (Sultana et al., 2020).
The healthcare leaders played an essential role in managing the workforce by recruiting non-specialized clinicians to assist in the hospitals while saving the most qualified healthcare workers from the frontline and restricting them to emergency and intensive care units during the pandemic (Morgantini et al., 2020).
Related Studies
The acute shortage of healthcare providers has exposed the current workforce to strains that have created burnout (Dall’Ora et al., 2020).
Professional burnouts remain a central challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic (Lasalvia et al., 2021).
Healthcare workers are constantly emotionally and physically exhausted due to the alarming number of patients they handle during the pandemic (Cotel et al., 2021).
As the work demand increases across all hospital settings due to the high number of emerging infections, care providers are likely to become worn out (Cotel et al., 2021).
Identifying issues such as excessive workload, limited rewards and recognition, and the lack of control of healthcare resources might allow healthcare leaders to address burnout (Dall’Ora et al., 2020).
Resource shortage has affected the provision of suitable rewards, appropriate resources for care delivery, and the employment of more care providers (Cotel et al., 2021).
Professional stressors such as lack of PPEs (Personal Protective Equipment), inadequate compensation, and extreme assignments have led to increased burnout among these professionals (Morgantini et al., 2020).
Facilitating healthcare providers with the right resources and systems is a prerequisite for reducing professional burnout (Prapanjaroensin et al., 2017).
Healthcare providers face mental strains emerging from the lack of preparedness amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Leaders have failed to integrate and implement quality preparedness approaches to boost workforce well-being during the pandemic (Khasne et al., 2020).
Leaders should examine factors that generate burnout and find effective handling to protect nurses against burnout. As Lasalvia et al. (2021) revealed, healthcare professionals act as the primary targets in this case, with leaders expected to safeguard their physical, emotional, and psychological well-being.
Patients risk failing to achieve the projected outcomes when healthcare providers are exposed to burnout (Lasalvia et al., 2021). For example, care providers experiencing burnout are likely to cause medical errors that negatively impact patients’ health and welfare.
Overall, leaders’ inability to develop a robust and effective COVID-19 preventive framework is a primary barrier to the fight against professional burnout among healthcare providers (Jalili et al., 2021).
Leaders have a paramount role in creating an excellent working environment that limits exhaustion among care providers. A strategy like adequate staffing will ensure that care providers can sufficiently care for the patients amidst the rising number of positive cases (Sultana et al., 2020).
Anticipated and Discovered Themes
Most employees will recommend and emphasize the need for a better understanding of leaders’ role in protecting and safeguarding healthcare workers from professional burnout, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and others likely to emerge (Khasne et al., 2020). Improved leadership participation will reduce misunderstanding and other work-related strains that leave crucial gaps or burnout (Sultana et al., 2020).
Healthcare workers may present the unexpected increase in the number of individuals with COVID 19 infections as a source of burnout because of increased pressure (Cotel et al., 2021).
The shift in work descriptions and cultures after the pandemic has introduced uncertainty and new practices that pressure the healthcare workers (Jalili et al., 2021). A flexible working schedule will reduce associated burdens that make providers prone to burnout (Cotel et al., 2021).
Employees might claim that increased appreciation through incentives such as rewards and bonuses might reduce their burnout levels (Anthony-Mcmann et al., 2017).
Healthcare providers might report a failure by their administrators by claiming that the leaders should have evaluated the situation to develop proactive solutions when exposed to adverse conditions such as professional burnout (Khasne et al., 2020).
The employees might generally confirm that burnout is not a new concept by stating it has been prevalent before COVID 19 because of a lack of viable measures to mitigate this problem and its adverse outcomes (Lasalvia et al., 2021).
Improved leadership participation will reduce misunderstanding and other work-related strains that leave crucial gaps or burnout (Sultana et al., 2020).
Summary
Burnout remains a significant difficulty due to leaders’ lack of effective ways to deal with issues predisposing healthcare personnel to professional burnout (Lasalvia et al., 2021).
Effective leadership is critical in addressing burnout among healthcare workers because it ensures that professionals are engaged (Sultan et al., 2020).
Creating successful leadership strategies helps bridge the gap that contributes to miscommunication and work pressures, contributing to burnout (Sultan et al., 2020).
Leaders have a critical role in creating and implementing effective burnout intervention strategies (Sultan et al., 2020).
Healthcare providers need to plan ahead of time to deal with and manage the COVID-19 outbreak (Khasne et al., 2020).
To avoid burnout, leaders should implement initiatives that guarantee healthcare providers are well-versed and informed about COVID-19 mitigation strategies (Sultan et al., 2020).
Healthcare executives should be aware of their responsibilities to improve their chances of avoiding workplace burnout. (Khasne et al., 2020).
Leaders should establish adequate personnel levels to ensure that caregivers are not overburdened by their tasks (Sultana et al., 2020).
Leaders should invest in quality leadership styles, including employee engagement and transactional leadership (Sultan et al., 2020).
The primary aim is to ensure that administrators and other leaders commit their time and efforts to developing measures that limit exposure to professional burnout in the workplace (Sultan et al., 2020).
The absence of effective strategies to provide healthcare services contributed to the high burnout rates among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic (Lasalvia et al., 2021).
Healthcare workers blamed hospital leadership for the inadequate preparedness measures that subsequently led to high burnout levels in healthcare workers (Khasne et al., 2020).
Burnout among healthcare workers is a crucial issue; leaders have to ensure that such an issue does not affect the quality of services patients receive (Anthony-McMann et al., 2017).
Is the absence of a proper coronavirus prevention program the eminent cause of burnout among healthcare professionals? (Jalili et al., 2021)
Conducive work environments are the most effective solutions to burnout concerns in healthcare settings (Morgantini et al., 2020).
Recruiting a sufficient workforce during the pandemic created a conducive healthcare working environment (Sultana et al., 2020; Morgantini et al., 2020).
Workforce shortage contributes to burnout in healthcare professionals ((Dall’Ora et al., 2020).
Administrators shall enhance leadership participation to ensure that leaders understand issues such as employee burnout and work strains (Sultana et al., 2020).
Physical and mental exhaustion arose from the influx of patients during the covid-19 pandemic (Cotel et al., 2021).
Summary and Transition
The topic “COVID-19 burnout among healthcare workers” is an area that most investigators have delved into in the current times. The research outcomes will add to the current literature and support other investigators undertaking similar studies. The central focus is on how leaders have exposed healthcare providers to professional burnout, especially during the pandemic (Khasne et al., 2020). The results will offer leaders valuable insights focused on the strategic actions they can develop to reduce burnout. For example, developing flexible schedules and offering mental and psychological support services are some of the potential recommendations that the research will investigate. Leaders can take these strategic actions to protect h healthcare workers from burnout. Section one consists of the following sections:
Purpose Statement: The section highlights the reasons behind the study. Also, it is the part that provides information regarding what the research intends to achieve (Bonache & Festing, 2020). In this case, the study aims to account for the healthcare provider burnout and mitigation measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research Questions: It is a crucial part of the research because it identifies specific queries related to the study. The research must provide questions that guarantee focus from the beginning to the end (Gaya & Smith, 2016). Research questions enable researchers to remain grounded in the study topic.
The Research Paradigm: The part of the study which provides information concerning beliefs and agreements from the scientific field. The section indicates the agreed strategies for exploring and understanding scientific topics (Gustafsson, 2017). The study should not utilize any research formulas and theories but the ones ratified by the scientific community.
The Research Design: The part of the study provides strategies used to incorporate all elements of the undertaking. It integrates all sections of the research into a comprehensible and logical unit. The research design includes an explanation of data collection (Gaya & Smith, 2016). Also, the section accounts for the measurement and data analysis. It ensures the researcher answers the research question or problem comprehensively.
The Research Framework: It is a vital part of the research because it highlights and presents explanations of the relationships involving concepts, theories, and constructs (Gustafsson, 2017). Therefore, the study framework gives an overview of the right direction toward answering or solving the research problem. It guides scholars to focus on the objectives from the beginning to the end of the study.
Research assumptions: The section accounts for the assumed factors within the research. Researchers must identify the assumptions because they can affect the outcomes adversely (Gustafsson, J. (2017). Mitigating the unwanted outcomes of assumption is crucial.
Limitations. The part includes constraints related to the undertaking. It could be time, resources, and lack of participants (Gaya & Smith, 2016). It is imperative to identify the limitations to plan how to overcome them.
Delimitations: It entails the strategies to eliminate identified research limitations. Researchers must ensure the limitations do not interfere with outcome validity and reliability (Gaya, H. J., & Smith, E. E. (2016). In this way, the conclusion can be valid.
Summary: The section summarizes explored concepts and offer an overview of the literature outline. The summary makes it easier for readers to understand the entire project (Butina, M. (2015). Hence, the summary should be comprehensive.
Appendices, and academic references valuable in this research study. These are key perspectives that should be accommodated in the first section to prepare the readers for what they should expect to appear in section two.
The second part of this study will entail different segments such as research methodology, data collection, and measurement that establish an effective link with the first section to develop a solid picture of the overall research process and its projected goals and objectives. The researcher will establish the methodology for undertaking the research and provide supporting details surrounding the selected methods. An overview of the targeted population, sampling process, and sample size will be provided. This segment will pay in-depth attention to the data collection methods whose aim will be to gather data and information. A rationale behind the target group selection will also be included. For example, if the researcher highlights questionnaires and interviews as the central data collection methods, one must portray the reasons behind selecting them over others. Following the data collection part will be a descriptive analysis stage that will concentrate on interpreting the obtained information. This will lead to generalization, recommendations, and conclusions. With the use of an effective data analysis processes, the researcher will acquire valuable information leading to an effective generalization and conclusion. Research reliability and validity will also be established to ensure the conclusion made from the research is valid and reliable. The recommendations and conclusions derived from the research will add to an existing pool of academic literature linked to the topic at hand. Overall, the second section remains one of the most critical phases in a research study. It cultivates a better understanding of the topic at hand as established by the research outcomes.
Overview of Section 2
Section two will focus on the research methodology, the targeted population, sampling methods, the data collection process, analysis, recommendations, and conclusions. In the methodology part, the investigator will determine the integral research methods used. This might include surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments. The rationale behind each selection will be provided. This part will include the targeted population, desired and selected sample size, sampling procedure, and rationale. One of the primary approaches that will define this segment is the data collection process. The researcher will collect valuable data and information useful in the research. A well-established plan of useful data tools, the collection strategy, and data organization will be highlighted in this part. The investigator will provide supporting information behind reliance on the selected data collection methods and their role in providing integrity and reliance. After collecting data, an analysis procedure will follow where the researcher will use vital tools and techniques to analyze the obtained data and information. A recommendation and conclusion part will follow to highlight to the audience the outcomes achieved and how they support the research questions. The researcher will also provide details focusing on the reliability and validity of the research project and supporting information. This research’s generalizations, recommendations, and conclusions will highlight if leaders are responsible for protecting healthcare workers against burnout. This information will add to existing literature relevant to this domain.
References
Al-Busaidi, Z. Q. (2008). Qualitative research and its uses in health care. Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal, 8(1), 11.
Ali, S. K., Shah, J., & Talib, Z. (2021). COVID-19 and mental well-being of nurses in a tertiary facility in Kenya. Plos one, 16(7), e0254074. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254074
Allen, M. G., &Voytek, M. (2017). Perceptions of Occupational Therapy Students and Faculty of Compressed Courses: A Pilot Study. The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, 5(4). https://doi.org/ 10.15453/2168-6408.1265
Anthony‐McMann, P. E., Ellinger, A. D., Astakhova, M., &Halbesleben, J. R. (2017). Exploring different operationalizations of employee engagement and their