When it comes to health care, Americans increasingly pay more for less. One in five patients now waits over two months to see a primary care physician or specialist. At its core, this crisis stems from a growing mismatch between patient demand and provider supply. In the wake of pandemic-era delays, demand for physicians has skyrocketed, while the health care workforce has shrunk by tens of thousands since 2020.
A major driver of this exodus is exhaustion. In the U.S., employee burnout costs the health care system billions each year in lost productivity and staff turnover. Each departure increases the burden on those who remain, creating a vicious cycle similar to what I have witnessed in Army Special Operations.
Why have we allowed the health care workforce to reach such a breaking point? The answer lies in a workplace culture that prioritizes daily endurance over sustainable schedules. For decades, health care systems tacitly celebrated martyrdom, praising those who worked the longest, slept the least and sacrificed the most.
Patients need nurses and doctors who aren’t exhausted. But we can’t just tell health care workers — who are used to putting others’ needs before their own — to get better at maintaining their own health.
Health care is a calling for many providers, and asking them to put themselves first can feel at odds with their deeply ingrained sense of service.
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Instead, health care organizations must fulfill their moral obligation to support their workers — physically, mentally and emotionally — and insist on self care as a line item for evaluation. Neglecting this responsibility doesn’t just harm individual employees; it erodes institutional culture, damages public trust and ultimately compromises patient care. A nurse is unable to provide compassionate care while running on empty. A physician’s judgment is clouded by the fog of constant fatigue.
To protect our talent, our institutions and ultimately our patients, we need to reimagine how we support employee well-being.
Some innovative health systems are demonstrating a better path.
At my institution — the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City — physicians who fully engaged with our comprehensive wellness effort, The Resiliency Project, which combined the use of a wearable device with professional coaching, reported a threefold reduction in burnout symptoms over 12 weeks.
These success stories share common elements. They’re evidence based, integrated into schedules rather than piled on top of already heavy workloads, fully funded, and supported by leadership. And the implementers recognize that while individual resilience matters, it can’t compensate for the inherent stress that has become a cultural norm in health care.
We now have the tools and knowledge to make this transformation. Now we need the will to turn them into standard practice. It’s time to build a system that cares for caregivers as much as they care for us.
Steve Forti is a U.S. Army Special Forces combat veteran and former critical care nurse. Currently, he serves as the chief wellness and resiliency officer at the Hospital for Special Surgery.