National Survey Finds Majority of Healthcare Workers Have Considered Leaving Their Roles or the Industry Altogether in the Past Year as Burnout Intensifies

Holon Solutions, the leading human-centric healthcare technology company, released new survey findings that provide insight into the current state of burnout and turnover in the healthcare industry, as well as how healthcare workers feel about rising administrative tasks and healthcare technologies.

According to the survey results, 77% of healthcare workers are experiencing burnout, with the top three reasons being not enough people to get the work done (70%), high demands from patients (48%) and too many patients (41%). Time constraints caused by time-consuming patient notes, summaries and charting (56%), as well as data entry (37%) are leading care teams to spend less time with patients. All this is contributing to a continued mass exodus from the field, with 62% of healthcare workers having considered leaving their role or the industry altogether.

The survey also found that healthcare workers are spending 34% of their time on administrative work, which is a major contributor to burnout, and 72% stated that they would be very or extremely interested in technology that cuts down the time of administrative work, including 75% of nurses surveyed.

“Healthcare workers are burned out due to staffing shortages compounded by tedious, redundant and wasteful admin work. The more staffing shortages persist, the more burnout occurs – fueling more staffing shortages. This vicious cycle is preventing care teams from doing what they got into healthcare to do: help people. It’s time to provide relief, prioritize the well-being of our workforce and take action to address this critical issue. To be successful, we have to change together, and we have to change smart,” said Jon Zimmerman, CEO of Holon Solutions.

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The survey also asked healthcare professionals about their concerns for their role in the next one to two years. The top three concerns were increasing workload (65%), navigating new protocols (13%) and keeping up with innovations/new technologies (10%).

Amidst some of the largest nursing strikes the healthcare industry has ever seen because of increased workloads for not enough compensation, the survey found that the #1 reason healthcare workers, including 66% of nurses surveyed, stayed in their role was a competitive salary and benefits package.

Additional findings include:

Churn in healthcare shows no sign of slowing down

• 51% say their jobs have become more difficult in the past year
• Top causes of burnout
  • Not enough people to get the work done (70%)
  • High demands from patients (48%)
  • Too many patients (41%)
  • Unhappy with management (37%)
  • Too much administrative work (30%)
• 18% of healthcare workers left a job in the last year
  • Top 3 reasons people left jobs in healthcare in the last year are:
    • Unhappy with management (57%)
    • Not enough people to get the work done (46%)
    • Not enough time to focus on patients (36%)
  • Competitive salary/benefits package is the #1 reason people are staying in their roles

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How healthcare workers are spending their time

• For patient-facing healthcare workers, 50% of their time is spent on patient care, 32% on admin, 12% on education/training, and 5% on other tasks.
• For all healthcare workers, 40% of their time is spent on patient care, 34% on admin, 15% on education/training, and 9% on other tasks.
• 46% of healthcare workers say patient care is most responsible for making them work overtime, with administrative care as the secondary reason at 35%

It’s no secret that healthcare workers are stressed, but their top frustrations are…

• Administrative work has caused 43% of healthcare workers the most stress in the last year, while 42% say patient care has stressed them out the most
• 65% of healthcare workers are most concerned about their workloads increasing in the next 1-2 years
• 51% of healthcare workers believe that leadership in their organization does not understand their greatest workplace stressors, while 49% believe they do
  • 35% believe that addressing their greatest workplace concerns are of low or not a priority to leadership at their organization
  • 24% say it is a high priority or essential
• The top frustrations amongst healthcare professionals about their roles are:
  • Not enough time with patients and people (34%)
  • Too much administrative work (32%)
  • 50% of nurses say their top frustration over the past year has been not having enough time to spend with patients

Healthcare workers want technology that cuts down on admin work

• The biggest benefits healthcare workers value most in new technologies are decreasing duplicate work (50%), followed closely by simpler navigation through user interface/design (49%) and cutting down on administrative work (47%)
• 72% of healthcare workers are very or extremely interested in new technology that would cut down time spent on administrative work (75% of nurses)
• 59% of healthcare workers believe the industry is more focused on technology than humans

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Admin work is taking precious time away from treating patients

• The most cumbersome daily administrative tasks, ranked by healthcare workers are:
  1. Charting, appointment notes and documentation
  2. Scheduling/rescheduling appointments
  3. Messaging with patients
• The top pain points related to prior authorization are:
  • It’s a slow process (49%)
  • Human errors (41%)
  • Time intensive paperwork (37%)

Is Gen-Z driving the staffing shortage in healthcare?

• Gen-Z is the cohort most likely to have left a job in the last year (38% vs. 21% were millennials, 14% were Gen-X, 6% were Boomers)
• 70% of Gen-Z healthcare workers who left a job in healthcare in the last year did so because they were unhappy with management
• Gen-Z are thinking about leaving the healthcare industry more than other generations (44% of them have considered it vs. 31% of millennials, 30% of Gen-X and 31% of Boomers)

Survey Methodology

The results in this report are from an online survey that was fielded from March 3 to 12, 2023. There were 691 respondents to the survey. The responses were not weighted.

Demographics + Firmographics

• Age: 18-34 (29%), 35-44 (31%), 45-54 (23%), 55-64 (16%), 65+ (1%)
• Generation: Baby Boomers (10%), Generation X (34%), Millennials (51%), Generation Z (5%)
• Employment status: Working full time (100%)
• Industry: Hospital / healthcare system (73%), Social services (8%), Other (19%)
• Headcount: 100-999 employees (28%); 1,000-9,999 employees (27%); 10,000+ employees (21%); 10-99 employees (17%); 1-9 employees (7%)
• Role: Administration (10%), Customer Service (9%), Information Technology (3%), Nurse (20%), Operations (10%), Physician (3%), Primary Caregiver (6%), Specialist (6%), Other Administrative (22%), All Others (11%)

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