Objective: To evaluate physician burnout, well-being, and work unit safety grades in relationship to perceived major medical errors. Participants and Methods: From August 28, 2014, to October 6, 2014, we conducted a population-based survey of US physicians in active practice regarding burnout, fatigue, suicidal ideation, work unit safety grade, and recent medical errors. Multivariate logistic regression and mixed-effects hierarchical models evaluated the associations among burnout, well-being measures, work unit safety grades, and medical errors. Results: Of 6695 responding physicians in active practice, 6586 provided information on the areas of interest: 3574 (54.3%) reported symptoms of burnout, 2163 (32.8%) reported excessive fatigue, and 427 (6.5%) reported recent suicidal ideation, with 255 of 6563 (3.9%) reporting a poor or failing patient safety grade in their primary work area and 691 of 6586 (10.5%) reporting a major medical error in the prior 3 months. Physicians reporting errors were more likely to have symptoms of burnout (77.6% vs 51.5%; P<.001), fatigue (46.6% vs 31.2%; P<.001), and recent suicidal ideation (12.7% vs 5.8%; P<.001). In multivariate modeling, perceived errors were independently more likely to be reported by physicians with burnout (odds ratio [OR], 2.22; 95% CI, 1.79–2.76) or fatigue (OR, 1.38; 95% CI, 1.15–1.65) and those with incrementally worse work unit safety grades (OR, 1.70; 95% CI, 1.36–2.12; OR, 1.92; 95% CI, 1.48–2.49; OR, 3.12; 95% CI, 2.13–4.58; and OR, 4.37; 95% CI, 2.06–9.28 for grades of B, C, D, and F, respectively), adjusted for demographic and clinical characteristics. Conclusion: In this large national study, physician burnout, fatigue, and work unit safety grades were independently associated with major medical errors. Interventions to reduce rates of medical errors must address both physician well-being and work unit safety.

Background: Whether healthcare provider burnout contributes to lower quality of patient care is unclear.Purpose: To estimate the overall relationship between burnout and quality of care, and to evaluate if published studies provide exaggerated estimates of this relationship.

Background Burnout is widespread among healthcare providers and is associated with adverse safety behaviours, operational and clinical outcomes. Little is known with regard to the explanatory links between burnout and these adverse outcomes. Objectives (1) Test the psychometric properties of a brief four-item burnout scale, (2) Provide neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) burnout and resilience benchmarking data across different units and caregiver types, (3) Examine the relationships between caregiver burnout and patient safety culture. Research design Cross-sectional survey study. Subjects Nurses, nurse practitioners, respiratory care providers and physicians in 44 NICUs. Measures Caregiver assessments of burnout and safety culture. Results Of 3294 administered surveys, 2073 were returned for an overall response rate of 62.9%. The percentage of respondents in each NICU reporting burnout ranged from 7.5% to 54.4% (mean=25.9%, SD=10.8). The four-item burnout scale was reliable (α=0.85) and appropriate for aggregation (intra-class correlation coefficient−2=0.95). Burnout varied significantly between NICUs, p<0.0001, but was less prevalent in physicians (mean=15.1%, SD=19.6) compared with non-physicians (mean=26.9%, SD=11.4, p=0.0004). NICUs with more burnout had lower teamwork climate (r=−0.48, p=0.001), safety climate (r=−0.40, p=0.01), job satisfaction (r=−0.64, p<0.0001), perceptions of management (r=−0.50, p=0.0006) and working conditions (r=−0.45, p=0.002). Conclusions NICU caregiver burnout appears to have ‘climate-like’ features, is prevalent, and associated with lower perceptions of patient safety culture.

Purpose: Racial/ethnic disparities in severe maternal morbidity (SMM) are substantial, but little is known about whether these disparities are changing over time or the role of maternal and obstetric factors. Methods: We examined disparities in SMM prevalence and trends using linked birth certificate and delivery discharge records from Californian births during 1997-2014 (n = 8,252,025). Results: The prevalence of SMM was highest in non-Hispanic (NH) Black women (1.63%), lowest in NH White women (0.84%), and increased from 1997-2014 by approximately 170% in each racial/ethnic group. The magnitude of SMM disparities remained consistent over time. Compared to NH White women, the adjusted risk of SMM was higher in women who identified as

BACKGROUND Differences in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) quality of care provided to very-low-birth-weight (VLBW; <1500g) infants may contribute to the persistence of racial/ethnic disparity. An examination of such disparities in a population-based sample across multiple dimensions of care and outcomes is lacking. METHODS Prospective observational analysis of 18,616 VLBW infants in 134 California NICUs between January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2014. We assessed quality of care delivery via the Baby-MONITOR, a composite indicator consisting of nine process and outcome measures of quality. For each NICU we calculated a risk adjusted composite and individual component quality score for each race/ethnicity. We standardized each score to the overall population to compare quality of care between and within NICUs. RESULTS We found clinically and statistically significant racial/ethnic variation in quality of care delivery between NICUs as well as within NICUs. Composite quality scores ranged by 5.26 standard units (range −2.30 to 2.96). Adjustment of Baby-MONITOR scores by race/ethnicity had only minimal effect on comparative assessments of NICU performance. Among subcomponents of the Baby-MONITOR, non-Hispanic White infants scored higher on measures of process compared with non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics. Compared with Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks scored higher on measures of outcome; Hispanics scored lower on seven of the nine Baby-MONITOR subcomponents. CONCLUSION Significant racial/ethnic variation in quality of care delivery exists between and within NICUs. Providing feedback of disparity scores to NICUs could serve as an important starting point for promoting improvement and reducing disparities.