Change Fatigue in Health Care Professionals--An Issue of Workload or Human Factors Engineering?

Abstract

In the demanding and fast-paced world of health care, it is not uncommon for nurses and other health care professionals to have days where they are pushed to their limits. Despite these pressures, each year, new initiatives and practice recommendations are shared within organizations that the nurses must learn, embrace, and include in their practice. Each new initiative can be additive to the nurse's workload; most changes are not time neutral but require staff to expend an allotment of time from their day to complete. In our efforts to adopt new recommendations, is it realistic or possible to add on to workload and stretched resources in an ongoing manner? The following article provides an overview of how issues such as change fatigue and increased workload need to be addressed. Through use of workload measurement tools and guidance by the principles of human factors engineering, we can better support the provision of optimal patient care in a demanding environment.

Keywords: change; change management; fatigue; human factors engineering; workload.