Comment from HHS, HHS-OPHS-2018-0025, HHS-OPHS-2018-0025-0001, N/A

Study Title: Health Center Workforce Well-being Survey Evaluation and Technical Assistance Abstract: The Health Center Program, administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), delivers affordable, accessible, quality, and value-based primary health care to millions of people regardless of their ability to pay. Health centers serve 1 in 11 people across the country, and lead the nation in driving quality improvement and reducing health care costs for America’s taxpayers. Health centers provide high-quality primary care services and support public health priorities such as the opioid crisis, the White House Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America initiative, and the response to COVID-19. Health centers act as the safety net for millions of patients who are disproportionately poor and have limited access to care. In supporting the mission, health centers employ over 280,000 full and part time health care providers (i.e., physicians, medical, dental, mental and behavioral health, vision services, pharmacy, enabling services, quality improvement, and facility and non-clinical support staff) who are at the forefront of supporting HRSA’s strategic goals to reform, strengthen, and modernize the nation’s health care system and improve access to quality of health care and services. Healthcare workforce burnout has been a challenge prior to COVID-19 and other recent public health crises. In fact, clinicians and health care trainees are experiencing alarming rates of burnout characterized as a high degree of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a low sense of personal accomplishment at work. Understanding the factors of workforce well-being and satisfaction, reducing burnout, and applying evidence-based technical assistance and other quality improvement strategies around workforce well-being is perhaps more important now than ever before, as the healthcare workforce continues to expand while recovering from and preparing for future health care delivery challenges. The Health Center Workforce Well-being Survey initiative will study all health center full and part time staff, collect and analyze survey data with a target goal of 85 percent from participating health center employees. Data collected will be analyzed to further improve Health Center Program workforce well-being and further HRSA’s goal of being a leader in workforce recruitment, retention, and satisfaction. This will continue to be important going into the future, as HRSA funded health centers have already experienced a staff increase of 13 percent from 2017 to 2019. Contractor: John Snow, Incorporated (JSI) Period of Performance: September 2021 to September 2023