KYLIE WOOLCOCK Acting Chief Executive AHHA
Supporting our workforce Matching and forecasting the needs, demands
With the healthcare workforce still mobilised to
and supply of the health workforce are
deal with the pandemic, 2022 has seen the health
complex in any context. In the next five years,
system attempt to adapt to reduce the significant
significant growth in the health and social
impacts of burnout on the mental health and
sector is estimated to require an increase of
wellbeing of an already outstretched workforce.
over 300,000 skilled workers nationally. This is
In this regard, value-based healthcare (VBHC)
against a backdrop of the existing workforce
pioneer Elizabeth Teisberg has recommended
being less willing to work than before.
reframing ‘burnout’ as a moral injury; defined
The pandemic has exacerbated the impact of
as the damage done to one’s conscience by a
burnout and its pervasiveness across the health
transgression of moral values. Teisberg further
workforce. A survey of almost 600 frontline
suggests that, ‘system-level solutions that
healthcare staff carried out by Edith Cowan
facilitate relationship-centred care and maximise
University during Australia’s first wave of
healthcare workers (are) intrinsic motivation to
COVID-19, revealed that the workforce is not
heal. The approach to combat burnout is to align
only less willing to work, but also one-third
clinical work and experience with patient goals
reported at least one symptom of burnout
using value-based healthcare principles.’
(35%) or depression (30%), as well as disclosing absenteeism (16%). The removal of COVID restrictions has since
At AHHA, reorienting our health system to one that is value-based means shifting our focus to the outcomes that matter to people and
placed a further burden on healthcare workers
communities for the resources used. Combating
due to furloughed staff. If not addressed, the
burnout should be an essential component of
decline of Australia’s health workforce will be
the argument for making the transition to a
a major contributor to health system failure.
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The Health Advocate • MAY 2022
