Physician Burnout, Well-being, and Work Unit Safety Grades in Relationship to Reported Medical Errors.

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