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The Healthcare Sector Employer’s Duty of Care: Implications for Worker Well-Being

Pandemic diseases of this century have differentially targeted healthcare workers globally. These infections include Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SARS, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Ebola. The COVID-19 pandemic has c...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: McDiarmid, Melissa, Condon, Marian, Gaitens, Joanna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8199909/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34205069
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18116015
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author McDiarmid, Melissa
Condon, Marian
Gaitens, Joanna
author_facet McDiarmid, Melissa
Condon, Marian
Gaitens, Joanna
author_sort McDiarmid, Melissa
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description Pandemic diseases of this century have differentially targeted healthcare workers globally. These infections include Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SARS, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Ebola. The COVID-19 pandemic has continued this pattern, putting healthcare workers at extreme risk. Just as healthcare workers have historically been committed to the service of their patients, providing needed care, termed their “duty of care”, so too do healthcare employers have a similar ethical duty to provide care toward their employees arising from historical common law requirements. This paper reports on results of a narrative review performed to assess COVID-19 exposure and disease development in healthcare workers as a function of employer duty of care program elements adopted in the workplace. Significant duty of care deficiencies reported early in the pandemic most commonly involved lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) availability. Beyond worker safety, we also provide evidence that an additional benefit of employer duty of care actions is a greater sense of employee well-being, thus aiding in the prevention of healthcare worker burnout.
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spelling pubmed-81999092021-06-14 The Healthcare Sector Employer’s Duty of Care: Implications for Worker Well-Being McDiarmid, Melissa Condon, Marian Gaitens, Joanna Int J Environ Res Public Health Review Pandemic diseases of this century have differentially targeted healthcare workers globally. These infections include Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SARS, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Ebola. The COVID-19 pandemic has continued this pattern, putting healthcare workers at extreme risk. Just as healthcare workers have historically been committed to the service of their patients, providing needed care, termed their “duty of care”, so too do healthcare employers have a similar ethical duty to provide care toward their employees arising from historical common law requirements. This paper reports on results of a narrative review performed to assess COVID-19 exposure and disease development in healthcare workers as a function of employer duty of care program elements adopted in the workplace. Significant duty of care deficiencies reported early in the pandemic most commonly involved lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) availability. Beyond worker safety, we also provide evidence that an additional benefit of employer duty of care actions is a greater sense of employee well-being, thus aiding in the prevention of healthcare worker burnout. MDPI 2021-06-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8199909/ /pubmed/34205069 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18116015 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
McDiarmid, Melissa
Condon, Marian
Gaitens, Joanna
The Healthcare Sector Employer’s Duty of Care: Implications for Worker Well-Being
title The Healthcare Sector Employer’s Duty of Care: Implications for Worker Well-Being
title_full The Healthcare Sector Employer’s Duty of Care: Implications for Worker Well-Being
title_fullStr The Healthcare Sector Employer’s Duty of Care: Implications for Worker Well-Being
title_full_unstemmed The Healthcare Sector Employer’s Duty of Care: Implications for Worker Well-Being
title_short The Healthcare Sector Employer’s Duty of Care: Implications for Worker Well-Being
title_sort healthcare sector employer’s duty of care: implications for worker well-being
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8199909/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34205069
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18116015
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