Keeping health care professionals healthy: Systematic strategies for mitigation, wellness, and burnout prevention.

Abstract

9013 Background: Health care professionals are deeply committed to the compassionate care of their patients. However, the same level of caring and compassion is not typically extended to colleagues, much less toward themselves. Escalating issues include: burnout, demoralization, personal conflicts, early retirement, and high turnover. Literature and training offer few suggestions to proactively address these complexities. There is a lack of attention to creating truly healthy work environments, with strategic infrastructure to enhance leadership, communication, and relationship among team members that directly impact wellness, engagement, and productivity. We will present the Staff Leadership Model (SLM) that integrates courageous and compassionate communication to foster healthier work environments, including how to implement and sustain the necessary infrastructure. Methods: In 4 large academic cancer settings, evolving iterations of the SLM were developed since 1995, focusing on maximizing inherent human capacities. In 2007, the Department of Supportive Care Medicine (DSCM), an interdisciplinary department at City of Hope (COH), systematically integrated the SLM. Specific processes, such as onboarding and skills training, regularly scheduled, open and honest communication, ways of working agreements, and performance evaluations that actively support value-driven behaviors, were implemented. Tailored interpersonal strategies were implemented, such as small group democratic meeting structure that equalizes all members, and problem-solving skills to deal with conflict. Clinicians received annual Press Ganey-administered surveys that measured clinician engagementas well as clinician resilience, measuring the ability to disconnect from work and ability to find meaning in their work, providing early warning indicators of burnout. Results: Sustained success has been demonstrated: 1) 5 years top tier clinician/staff engagement scores, with increase from 4.24 in 2022 to 4.32 in 2023 (+0.14 vs. overall COH) ; 2) 3.96 resilience index score vs. 3.80 overall COH in 2023 (3.23 decompression score vs. COH 2.94 and 4.69 activation score vs. COH 4.65); 3) Growth of the department from 25 professionals in 2007 to 170+ in 2024; 4) A clearly-defined clinical triage created through the expertise of the professionals; and 5) Staff creativity and leadership resulting in the creation and consistent growth of innovative, market-differentiating programs. Conclusions: Results support the relationship between the SLM and healthier work environments that increase engagement and decrease burnout, as reflected by the consistently high scores. The resilience index is a new survey measure with one year data. Cause-effect relation will continue to be evaluated. Overall, SLM creates a culture of health, wellness, support, and optimized individuals and teams.