The Impact of Covid-19 on the Mental Health of Health Care Providers

Abstract

Isabelle Davis, dean of the School of Nursing at Mountain View University, must develop a plan to support the mental health and well-being of the clinical workforce. She has spent the last three years working with the National Academy of Medicine on clinician well-being and burnout, and now the COVID-19 pandemic is adding a new stressor to the lives of clinicians, including doctors and nurses. Ensuring that clinicians would seek the support and care they needed could be elusive and was often fraught with stigma, especially if the care was psychiatric and even when the help was confidential. Left untreated, severe stress, emotional, and behavioral health issues affecting clinicians led to burnout, which could have very serious consequences on both patients and clinicians. This case, which has been taught successfully online at Darden, addresses financial issues caused by the pandemic, cultural stigma around mental health, and performance indicators to monitor to evaluate mental health care in the health system. Excerpt UVA-E-0457 Rev. Jan. 26, 2021 The Impact of COVID on the Mental Health of Health Care Providers Introduction Isabelle Davis sat at her desk in June of 2020 and reflected on a critical issue: the mental health and well-being of the clinical workforce at Mountain View University (MVU) Health. Since becoming the dean of the School of Nursing at MVU Health in the fall of 2019, she had been trying to get her arms around efforts to support clinician well-being at MVU. Davis had spent the last three years working on a focus group at the National Academy of Medicine on clinician well-being and burnout, and she was a member of its task force dedicated to this issue. The COVID-19 pandemic added a new stressor to the lives of clinicians, including doctors and nurses, so Davis had been charged by MVU Health leadership to develop a plan for the health system. Background . . .