Communication and Transparency as a Means to Strengthening Workplace Culture During COVID-19.

Abstract

What individuals think, say, and do produces workplace culture. In health care, the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped every aspect of this framework. Today, people think and talk through screens and do so in isolation. When clinical care delivery, operational processes, and work environments have all transformed so rapidly, the demands and stresses on our clinician workforce are bound to mount. So how do leaders facilitate optimal communication among frontline teams? Culture refers to the set of shared and widely accepted beliefs, values, and social practices of a group [1]. Eff ective communication that integrates complete transparency on the dynamic nature of operations, particularly during times of crisis, forms the foundation for building a culture of wellness for clinicians. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, clinical care delivery, operational processes, and work environments have all transformed rapidly to adapt to the remote world. Such changes have markedly amplifi ed the demands and stresses on clinicians [2]. Though large-scale deployment of telehealth has facilitated access to convenient medical care, the virtual medium may diminish the perception of humanism within the patient encounter. Mass home-confi nement directives such as quarantines and social distancing have amplifi ed social isolation. Remote work environments reducing interaction among colleagues have placed camaraderie and peer support at risk. Worklife balance has shifted: with children attending school remotely in the home environment, clinician parents are struggling with the concurrent tasks of working and child-rearing. While entire medical systems have rallied to support clinicians during a time in which clinicians have demonstrated increased altruism, the longterm risk of burnout has risen substantially [3]. To nurture trust, achieve values alignment, and strengthen workplace culture—all core elements of a strategy to prevent burnout [4]—communication of a shared mission in a time of crisis must be clear, consistent, and sincere. So how do leaders facilitate optimal communication among frontline teams, generating the inclusion, intentionality, and interactivity that achieves such trust and sustains engagement [4]? This article discusses the role of optimizing transparency and communication within the framework of medical teams as an essential component of a strategy to address clinician burnout, particularly during COVID-19. Using interventions in the department of psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as a representative case study, the authors of this paper discuss strategies implemented for frontline clinical teams consisting of physicians, nurses, medical assistants, and social workers. This article aims to address the following: