Physician burnout continues to decline across the U.S., a bright spot for an occupation plagued by heavy workloads, pervasive stress and high stakes. But the improvement is not equal across medical specialties, according to new data from the American Medical Association. [HealthcareDive and AMA]

Canva image

The AMA surveyed thousands of physicians and found that 41.9% reported experiencing a burnout symptom in 2025, down from 43.2% in 2024 and 48.2% in 2023. The decline likely reflects employer efforts to reduce burnout, including by increasing job satisfaction, the medical association said.

However, burnout rates vary significantly across specialties, and tend to be higher among doctors employed by hospitals, suggesting health systems could be doing more to ameliorate the phenomenon.

Physician burnout is a huge problem in U.S. healthcare. As doctors take on higher administrative burden and longer hours, the physical, spiritual and emotional toll is driving more to leave the field altogether, exacerbating America’s shortage of medical staff. Burnout is also tied to poorer quality of care and lower patient satisfaction.

More>

###

Discover Your Perfect Career Path – IOMC Job Career Center

You're busy - Let the Institute Help You 

Open to All - CV Reviews, Coaching and Interview Prep 

Canva image 

• Complete Confidentiality
• Easily Launch Your Job Search
• Let Opportunities Come to You
• Connect with Qualified Opportunities
• Catch the Eye of Recruiters
• Showcase Your Expertise Across Multiple Platforms

Explore the Institute’s Job Career Center—over 5,000 opportunities waiting for you. 

How to Find Your Dream Job: 9 Career Path Exercises. 

Use these exercises to help you discover your dream job>

More resources here>

###

Michael Reese Research and Education Foundation seeks several new Chicago-based board members to help the foundation survive and thrive into its next phase. We are looking for qualified, passionate leaders with an interest in Michael Reese's vision and an interest in healthcare, health equity, and innovation. We are looking for board members with all skill sets but have a particular interest in candidates with experience in finance/accounting, communications, and marketing.  

For more information, view listing on Idealist.org: 

###

Despite ongoing efforts to improve maternal and infant health, socioeconomic disparities threaten to undermine population health gains and perpetuate cycles of disadvantage. Although studies have documented disparities by an individual’s poverty status for a range of health outcomes, no recent studies have documented such disparities in birth outcomes in the US.¹ Poverty increases for women around the time of birth, when nutrition and medical costs increase.² Socioeconomic adversities in the perinatal period, including poverty, can have lasting effects for the mother and newborn.^3,4 However, macroeconomic conditions and policies related to poverty and health may have changed the risk of poverty and the nature of its relationship to birth outcomes. This study examined longitudinal trends in birth outcomes by poverty status, using the only multistate surveillance system with detailed information on the prenatal and postpartum periods, the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), a long-running survey paused indefinitely by the federal government. These results inform policies and interventions to address maternal and infant health inequities. [JAMA  Pediatrics]

Set up free account if you or your institution if needed. 

More> 

###

• Providing hospital-level care in patients’ homes was linked to better clinical outcomes, suggesting hospital-at-home programs could serve as a safe and efficient alternative to traditional inpatient care, according to a study published this week in JAMA Network Open. 
• Hospital at home was associated with decreased emergency department use within 30 days of discharge and lower in-hospital mortality, according to the research. But patients at hospital-at-home programs saw no significant difference in hospital readmissions within 30 days. 
• Additionally, adoption of hospital at home across the country is uneven, with few rural facilities participating, researchers wrote. The findings “underscore the need to address practical and implementation challenges to broaden equitable access,” they said.

More>

Outcomes Associated With Hospital at Home vs Traditional Inpatient Stay (Study) JAMA Network>

###

Importance  Prepregnancy care and counseling optimize maternal health before conception to improve outcomes for mothers and infants. In the US, 66.4% of reproductive-aged women have at least 1 modifiable risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcomes. [JAMA]

Canva image 

Conclusions and Relevance  Prepregnancy counseling and care reduce maternal morbidity and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Primary care–based discussion of reproductive goals, immunizations, screening for infections and substance use, and risk-reducing interventions such as folate supplementation can optimize outcomes in individuals contemplating pregnancy.

Full article>   

###

Special Olympics began as a grassroots sports movement in 1968. It was founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver to address the physical, social, and emotional needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) and to reduce their social isolation. In 1995, the organization launched Special Olympics Health in response to a stark reality revealed at the World Games at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut: nearly 15% of more than 7000 athletes from 143 countries were unable to compete at their best because of an urgent, unmet medical need based on unpublished data from Special Olympics. [AJPH]

Canva image

Tragically, these unmet health needs, many of which are preventable or treatable, persist to this day and carry profound consequences. People with IDD, even after controlling for access to care and comorbidities, live an average of 10 fewer years than their neurotypical peers. This gap in life expectancy is approximately twice that of the current difference between Black and White Americans in the United States. Although racial disparities in life expectancy have rightly received sustained public attention and research investment, the disparity affecting people with IDD has not (https://tinyurl.com/4akvvjvw).

Importantly, Special Olympics Health was designed to serve as a bridge to a better health care system, not as a permanent substitute for one. Yet nearly 30 years later, despite delivering more than two million health screenings worldwide, the program’s overall medical referral rate remains close to 15%, according to unpublished data from Special Olympics. This sobering figure indicates that the underlying system-level failures remain largely unaddressed as our volunteers continue to identify unmet or neglected needs.

More>

###

Thirty-one of 108 Illinois hospitals reviewed by the Leapfrog Group received top grades for patient safety, according to the group’s annual spring  report released Wednesday. [Health News Illinois]

It’s down four from when the national nonprofit last graded the state’s general acute hospitals in the fall.

Canva image

Twenty-four hospitals received a B, 22 received a C and three received a D.

Roseland Community Hospital in Chicago was the lone hospital to receive an F grade.

Gateway Regional Medical Center in Granite City did not receive a grade.

Twenty-six hospitals were not assigned a grade. The Leapfrog Group said the new designation is due to a ruling by a federal court in Florida, which sided with five state hospitals in a case challenging the methodology used by the organization to give safety ratings.

While the ruling only applied to the five Florida hospitals, Leapfrog said it did not assign grades to 450 hospitals across the country that did not participate in its 2024 or 2025 hospital survey.

“Leapfrog is pursuing an appeal and reviewing the Safety Grade methodology with its National Expert Panel to ensure the Hospital Safety Grade continues to be useful for consumers,” they said.

Illinois ranked 21st nationally, with 29 percent of its hospitals receiving top marks. That’s down four spots from the fall, when 32.4 percent of Illinois hospitals had A grades.

National data found significant improvement in 17 measures of errors and infections, including healthcare-associated infections, bar code medication administration, computerized physician order entry and five patient experience measures.

“The good news is that hospitals across the country are making meaningful strides in patient safety and helping save countless lives," said Leapfrog CEO Leah Binder. "But not all hospitals are the same.”

###

The Senate’s health appropriation committee heard two different approaches to better fund nursing homes in Illinois. [Health News Illinois]

That includes a proposal from Sen. Elgie Sims Jr., D-Chicago, that would remove the sunset on the current Medicaid access adjustment for nursing homes, which is $4.75 per resident day. It would also increase that amount to $10.50, which would go into effect next January.

Canva image 

Another provision would reduce the threshold for nursing homes outside the Chicago region to access those funds. 

Currently, facilities have to have 70 percent of occupied beds be Medicaid patients. The proposal lowers that amount to 60 percent for those homes outside Chicago.

The proposal is backed by the Health Care Council of Illinois. Executive Director Matt Pickering told the Senate’s Appropriations - Health and Human Services Committee that it is a “vital time to step up and support nursing homes in the state of Illinois.”

There have been 54 nursing home closures in Illinois over the last five years, he said, including 22 in the last two years.

“(The fund) is a vital lifeline, and we cannot afford uncertainty, and we cannot afford for it to go away,” Pickering said. 

The Medicaid access adjustment is set to sunset at the end of 2027.

Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Cherry Valley, expressed support for the plan, saying “every other organization seems to be getting their cost of living increases every year” outside of nursing homes.

“It is a little bit frustrating that we talk about wanting to have the best quality long-term care available for our family members and our residents, and yet we're not willing to put the funding up,” Syverson said.

Pickering noted one of the larger sources of revenue to support nursing homes is the provider tax, but the federal tax and spending plan passed last year caps restrictions on the amount that can be raised.

Ashley Snavely, CEO of the Illinois Health Care Association, said they are opposed to the plan. She said the language “undermines the progress” made when lawmakers reformed Medicaid funding to homes by tying it to quality care, resident outcomes and staffing.

“What was intended as a temporary bridge to help high Medicaid providers staff appropriately becomes a permanent payment without having to do the very thing the money is intended to do,” Snavely said.

She said she agrees with Pickering that more funding needs to head to nursing homes, but it must be tied to improved health outcomes.

That was seconded by Matt Hartman, on behalf of LeadingAge Illinois, who told lawmakers that a “further investment in the staffing and quality component” is the better route to take to support facilities.

Snavely said they are pushing an alternative plan that would increase funds if homes take steps like creating Alzheimer's units or increasing their staffing rates.

Sims told colleagues that “great minds can disagree” on the best route to take, but stressed that everyone’s goal is to improve health outcomes.

“That's what you're seeing across this industry, we want to make sure that the system works for the people who are being cared for within it,” Sims said.

###

Illinois parents are continuing to get their kids vaccinated at high rates despite ongoing controversy nationally about vaccines, according to data released by the state health department Monday. [Chicago Tribune]

Canva image 

More than 95% of children statewide had received 10 school-required vaccines as of October, including those against chickenpox, whooping cough, hepatitis B, measles and polio, among others. The only required vaccine that fewer than 95% of Illinois kids received was the meningococcal vaccine, with 94.4% of Illinois children vaccinated.

Though pockets of lower vaccination rates remain in parts of Illinois – including in Chicago for several vaccines – the statewide numbers were an improvement from the previous school year. Across Illinois, rates for all but one of the vaccines rose slightly.

The state’s goal is for 95% of kids to be vaccinated – a level that’s considered high enough to prevent the spread of infectious diseases and to protect those who cannot be vaccinated.

More>

###