Clinician Well-being

Clinician Well-being / en Fri, 25 Apr 2025 21:26:13 -0500 Mon, 07 Apr 25 13:04:38 -0500 Hospital’s Community Friendship Volunteer Program helps reduce social isolation among older adults /role-hospitals-elizabethtown-community-hospitals-community-friendship-volunteer-program-helps-reduce-social-isolation-among <div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-9"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-5"><img src="/sites/default/files/2025-04/ths-elizabethtown-senior-friendship-volunteer-700x532.jpg" alt="Elizabethtown Community Hospital. A young female caregiver helps an elderly woman shop in a grocery store" width="700" height="532"></div>Loneliness and social isolation are a growing public health concern. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office released “<a href="https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf" target="_blank">Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community</a>.” The report highlights data showing that loneliness is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety and premature death. The highest rates of social isolation are found among adults age 65 or older.To reduce social isolation and loneliness among older adults and help improve their health and well-being, Elizabethtown (N.Y.) Community Hospital launched the Community Friendship Volunteer Program in fall 2024. Developed with Mercy Care for the Adirondacks, a nonprofit organization that provides support services for seniors, the program pairs older adults with volunteers who provide companionship and support, but not clinical assistance. All volunteers must complete an application and background check.“Too often seniors in our community experience social isolation and loneliness, and this can have drastic effects on their health,” <a href="https://www.ech.org/News/Detail/94" target="_blank">observes Julie Tromblee</a>, vice president and chief nursing officer at Elizabethtown Community Hospital, part of the University of Vermont Health Network.Program volunteers visit older adults at their home or talk by telephone and may assist with correspondence and with shopping or other errands. Together, a volunteer and older adult may plan outings, enjoy music and literature, and participate in crafts, gardening or other activities. Families, friends and older adults themselves can request a volunteer match, and all services are free.The hospital is part of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative and views its volunteer program as complementary support. “The AFHS and Community Friendship Volunteer Program help ensure that we are supporting seniors both here at the hospital and in their own home,” Tromblee said.<a class="btn btn-primary" href="https://www.ech.org/About-Us/Community-Friendship-Volunteer-Program" target="_blank">LEARN MORE</a></div></div><div class="col-md-3"><div><h4>Resources on the Role of Hospitals</h4><ul><li><a href="/center/population-health">Improving Health and Wellness</a></li><li><a href="/roleofhospitals">All Case Studies</a></li></ul></div></div></div></div> Mon, 07 Apr 2025 13:04:38 -0500 Clinician Well-being Well-Being Debriefings: An Intervention to Support Workforce Well-Being and Patient Safety /education-events/well-being-debriefings-intervention-support-workforce-well-being-and-patient-safety Well-being debriefings provide a structured, peer-facilitated space for health care teams to process the emotional demands of their work, reduce burnout, and enhance team communication. These reflective sessions foster a supportive culture among colleagues, strengthening workforce resilience and improving patient safety outcomes.This live stream event in the <a href="/center/living-learning-network" title="AHA LLN">AHA’s Living Learning Network</a> (LLN)&nbsp;will explore how well-being debriefings can be integrated into broader safety and quality frameworks within health care organizations. Participants will gain practical insights into implementing debriefings in their settings and learn strategies to enhance well-being across their teams.To confirm your spot and attend this event, you must create an account in the Living Learning Network (LLN).&nbsp;Join or verify your account here. .btn-secondary { background-color: #9D2235; color: #fff; } <a class="btn btn-primary btn-secondary ext" href="https://livinglearningnetwork.org/" title="Confirm your spot and attend this LLN event">Confirm Your Spot</a> Mon, 10 Mar 2025 10:29:35 -0500 Clinician Well-being What is Cognitive Load and How to Manage It for Clinicians? /advancing-health-podcast/2024-07-22-managing-cognitive-load-health-care Clinicians bring all of their skill and mental acuity to treat the whole patient, but there are many factors that can derail their ability to provide patient care. In this new "Safety Speaks" conversation, Michael Privitera, M.D., professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center, discusses ways to ease the cognitive load that many physicians and caregivers face, and how simple steps can be implemented to make it easier to focus on what's most important.To learn more and sign up for the Patient Safety Initiative please visit <a href="/aha-patient-safety-initiative" target="_blank">/aha-patient-safety-initiative</a><div></div>&nbsp;<div class="raw-html-embed"> <details class="transcript"> <summary> <h2 title="Click here to open/close the transcript."> View Transcript &nbsp; </h2> </summary> 00;00;00;20 - 00;00;35;04 Tom Haederle Federal rules restrict an airline pilot to a flight maximum of eight hours if he or she is piloting the aircraft solo. This is because the human brain operates at peak performance for only so long. Minds and bodies tire and require rest. One term for handling highly technical and information heavy tasks is cognitive load, a measure for the mental effort required for processing whatever you're dealing with at the time. 00;00;35;06 - 00;01;06;03 Tom Haederle Welcome to Advancing Health, a podcast from the �� Association. I'm Tom Haederle with AHA communications. Clinicians bring all of their skill, expertise and mental firepower to bear on great patient care. But there are many aspects of care today that can derail or compete for their attention. In this Safety Speaker Series podcast, we explore ways to ease the cognitive load that many physicians and other caregivers face to allow them to focus on the most important job of treating patients. 00;01;06;05 - 00;01;19;16 Tom Haederle As today's guest, a retired professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center puts it. Brainpower is a finite resource. We have to budget the expertise like we would money and allocate it in the right places. 00;01;19;19 - 00;01;42;25 Elisa Arespacochaga Thanks, Tom. I’m Elisa Arespacochaga, vice president of clinical affairs and workforce, and today I'm really excited to be joined by Dr. Michael Privitera, a professor emeritus at the University of Rochester Medical Center who is a leading researcher on the intersection of health care quality and safety with well-being. And a good friend. Today's podcast is part of AHA's Patient Safety Initiatives Safety Speaks series. 00;01;42;27 - 00;01;48;08 Elisa Arespacochaga So, Mike, to get us started, tell me just a little bit about you and how you came to this work. 00;01;48;11 - 00;02;10;11 Michael Privitera, M.D. Sure. Absolutely. Elisa, good to see you. Basically, from the point of view, I've seen many changes in health care and how we tend to get overwhelmed with the information explosion that we have and a lot of expectations, but without the adequate resources really to deal with them and the overload, basically. So trying to look for a science that would help us with give us language. 00;02;10;17 - 00;02;18;10 Michael Privitera, M.D. That's kind of how I came across human factors and ergonomics. And one of the things you talk about today is cognitive load. 00;02;18;12 - 00;02;36;19 Elisa Arespacochaga Well, let's get into it. Let's start with that. Can you explain to me, because I didn't understand it before I heard you explain it. What do you mean by cognitive load and why is it particularly relevant for clinicians? You're a retired physician now. But why is this so important, particularly for our clinical colleagues? 00;02;36;21 - 00;02;58;14 Michael Privitera, M.D. Sure. Cognitive load is basically it's kind of a measurement of mental effort that's required in processing whatever it is you're dealing with at the time. So it could be very simple to very complex. If you're in medicine and nursing it tends to get very complex sometimes. So that would have a higher cognitive load than something that's very simple to deal with. 00;02;58;17 - 00;03;19;06 Michael Privitera, M.D. And this all gets processed through a part of our brain called the working memory. And we only have kind of a short time to deal with it. So our working memory only gives us about 15 to 30s to actually process something. So we easily can get over the limit to overload. And we've found workarounds around this, but that's why it becomes so important 00;03;19;06 - 00;03;35;10 Michael Privitera, M.D. so we don't make a mistake. If your profession has really high cognitive load per se, it's your higher risk for burnout. In a particular task, if the cognitive load is measured to be too high, the research shows that you're more likely for medical error. So it's very important. 00;03;35;12 - 00;03;43;16 Elisa Arespacochaga So can you tell me a little bit about sort of the cognitive load. Can you dive in a little bit about how it works and what it really measures? 00;03;43;18 - 00;04;07;23 Michael Privitera, M.D. Sure. It's where I think human factors and understanding cognitive load can really help us out of the current predicament we're in with ever increasing expectations and basically technology really exploding and making it harder for us humans to adapt. Right? The good news about cognitive load is there's the essential part, which is the intrinsic cognitive load. And it's basically the inherent difficulty. 00;04;07;26 - 00;04;34;18 Michael Privitera, M.D. And how we present something really makes a difference about how much of that brainpower we're using. So this research originally started in education. Doctor John Weller in Australia was understanding the three parts of cognitive load and talked about intrinsic. Germane is how much brain power is being used to make the mental model in your mind of what it is you're dealing with, so you can store it into your long term memory. 00;04;34;21 - 00;04;56;26 Michael Privitera, M.D. Or if you come across a pattern, you just heard a patient's history, well, that sounds like congestive heart failure. And you're kind of downloading from the long term memory back into working memory. And then you say, oh my gosh, that's a diagnosis here. So then, extraneous cognitive load is where we have lots of opportunity. That's basically the waste that we could get rid of. 00;04;57;02 - 00;05;18;22 Michael Privitera, M.D. What is it that we could remove by better design and sometimes a lot of conflicting pieces of information or too much information, or we're trying to synthesize all these expectations. There's extraneous cognitive load, and it kind of pulls our brainpower away from the task at hand that we either have to learn or do. So that's where our opportunity is. 00;05;18;22 - 00;05;27;23 Michael Privitera, M.D. We can really work by understanding how to get rid of this extraneous cognitive load and actually be able to see this invisible thing that's getting in our way. 00;05;27;26 - 00;05;36;22 Elisa Arespacochaga You've mentioned human factors and ergonomics a couple times. Can you just dig in a little bit more on that as well? I want to make sure folks understand. What does that even mean? 00;05;36;25 - 00;06;09;11 Michael Privitera, M.D. Human factors and ergonomics is a science really. It's embraced in many other professions, but not enough in health care. That's kind of our problem. So in other words, astronauts, pilots, even if you're into simultaneous translating at the United Nations, they consider how much you're having to deal with cognitively. And they have mandatory breaks. But in health care, it's kind of like we're not seeing the human limitation even though you're boarded in one, two or three things, if you stay up all night or you have excessive cognitive load, you might make the error in that board 00;06;09;11 - 00;06;19;27 Michael Privitera, M.D. certification times 2 or 3 doesn't really protect you enough. It helps a little bit, but you're still in the human club is the point here. We're not addressing the human club part of all this. 00;06;20;03 - 00;06;32;08 Elisa Arespacochaga Absolutely, absolutely. Every time I've tried to translate between English and Spanish, I'm very tired at the end and I cannot do simultaneous translating so. 00;06;32;11 - 00;07;00;04 Chris DeRienzo, M.D. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Safety Speaks, the podcast series dedicated to patient safety, brought to you by the �� Association. I'm Dr. Chris DeRienzo, the chief physician executive and a champion of the Patient Safety Initiative. AHA's Patient Safety Initiative is a collaborative, data driven effort that lifts up the voices of individual hospitals and health systems into the national patient safety conversation. 00;07;00;06 - 00;07;32;03 Chris DeRienzo, M.D. We strive to catalyze and connect health care professionals like you across America in your efforts to innovate and improve, and to bolster public trust in hospitals and health systems. By helping you share your successes. For more information and to join the 1500 other hospitals already involved, visit aha.org/patient safety or click on the link in the podcast description. Stay tuned to hear more about the incredible work of members of the AHA Patient Safety Initiative. 00;07;32;06 - 00;07;40;06 Chris DeRienzo, M.D. Remember, together we can make health care safer for everyone. 00;07;40;08 - 00;08;03;09 Elisa Arespacochaga Let's talk a little bit about some of the primary factors that really contribute to that high cognitive load in health care. Obviously, you talked a little bit about some of the challenges there. As a clinician, you're trying to bring disparate information together, but can you talk a little bit about how we sort of get in our own way I guess, in terms of driving up that cognitive load in health care environments? 00;08;03;12 - 00;08;34;28 Michael Privitera, M.D. Really excellent point. And I hope that just kind of helps people to start to really see that this actually is a problem. It may be invisible to us, but it's a real problem that affects us safety, well-being, quality and our ability to sustain our career, actually. It comes from a lot of sources in in basically high volume too. -uch of it is well-meaning, but it can be excessive and non-strategic, and sometimes it comes in the form of what we think might be patient safety initiatives or regulations. 00;08;35;00 - 00;08;56;25 Michael Privitera, M.D. And they might, the way they're designed backfire in purpose. A good example that comes to mind a lot in electronic medical record that we deal with is the best practice alert or pop up. You realize it's guaranteed to derail what you're thinking about at the time, but yet it's woven in as a guardrail or protective factor, or to remind you not to forget about something. 00;08;56;28 - 00;09;20;20 Michael Privitera, M.D. But if you don't know where that clinician is in their thinking process, their cognitive flow, they might be at the point that after they've seen their patient, they're in differential diagnosis. Well, they have these symptoms. What might it be? If you derail somebody right there they have anywhere from about a 20 to 40% chance that they might not get back to the material thinking about, plus the loss. 00;09;20;23 - 00;09;43;17 Michael Privitera, M.D. So in other words, what we're doing well-intended, but it can take up extra brainpower to get back on track. And you may actually lose info on healthcare. We have multiple regulators. We have multiple sources of authority or the payers. You have to do this, that and the other to get paid. So we have multiple sources and trying to reconcile those different things. 00;09;43;17 - 00;10;09;19 Michael Privitera, M.D. Sometimes if they're directly passed down, coming through the C-suite directly to the clinicians that have to do something, that's a lot of brain power you're trying to reconcile. And it takes away from patient care implication. I guess the whole message here is this is a finite resource, and the more we know about it, we have to budget the expertise of their brain power like we would money and allocate it in the right places strategically. 00;10;09;19 - 00;10;16;17 Michael Privitera, M.D. So that's the hope of this science. The more we know about it, we can understand how we have to strategically allocate. 00;10;16;19 - 00;10;38;10 Elisa Arespacochaga I'm fascinated by this, and so much I think about how much I get when someone interrupts me when I'm in the middle of writing something, or at the end, the amount of time it takes you to get back to where you were. I don't think I had actually ever thought about that. But yeah, if you're constantly being assaulted by pop-ups, whether they're best practice alerts or emails, it can disrupt your thinking. 00;10;38;12 - 00;10;55;27 Elisa Arespacochaga So let's talk about some strategies that are helpful. We sort of, you know, define where the challenge is. What are those effective ways of managing cognitive load with the health care workforce, so that we can appropriately budget that very finite resource of their ability to think through a problem? 00;10;55;29 - 00;11;14;25 Michael Privitera, M.D. That's a really great question. And a lot of this is in process in the work. So it's probably going to keep evolving over time. But we have one mantra to think about. Don't make them think more than they necessarily have to. If you can keep that in mind. Extra stuff if you can get to the point, concise, whatever. 00;11;14;25 - 00;11;50;08 Michael Privitera, M.D. But standardization helps if you allow a certain wiggle room for, you know, the exceptions that are needed, what we call aligned autonomy. It's still following the strategic plan of the institution, but a little bit of room for specific things. Come on learning some of the points, like consolidating information together. The concept is called split attention. So split attention is the greater the amount of time between two pieces of information or in space. Either one that makes it harder to see those two pieces of information is related, and being able to put it into your long term memory that they're related. 00;11;50;08 - 00;12;14;29 Michael Privitera, M.D. So put things together that are related: process coupling is another example of that. If there's two types of processes, try to get them closer together. That saves cognitive load. Some of the things we do naturally like dashboards help us cross comparative charts so we can work within that. 15 to 30s of working memory redundancy. We talk about in engineering is having two systems. 00;12;15;07 - 00;12;39;16 Michael Privitera, M.D. That's like in the airlines industry, a backup set of breaks for the plane if the one set doesn't work, gets redundancy. But in information redundancy can backfire. So trying to keep it to one source of information where possible. Satisficing is a term that's from economics. It's basically satisfactory and sufficient to do the job. But in everyday things, think of satisficing. 00;12;39;21 - 00;12;44;26 Michael Privitera, M.D. Is it good enough to do the job? It's a decision making strategy. 00;12;44;26 - 00;13;04;18 Elisa Arespacochaga I understand. Yeah, it's one that I struggle with understanding a way to, you know, do is it good enough to do what needs to be done, and where are the places where that extra energy can help, where it's really needed? What you're saying is really being very strategic and thinking about ways to really tighten down on where that finite resource is being used. 00;13;04;22 - 00;13;05;10 Michael Privitera, M.D. Yeah. 00;13;05;13 - 00;13;20;00 Elisa Arespacochaga Seems like it, you know, can last forever, but clearly it can't. I know one of our earliest interactions was one of your great papers on executive function and how quickly that deteriorates when you are tired or you're having a bad day or you don't feel you have control. 00;13;20;03 - 00;13;45;24 Michael Privitera, M.D. Oh, yeah, it does. It does. If you think about how some things are designed, like if a CEO, for example, might have somebody that's your first contact to get in towards his or her office. And so it protects their brain function for thinking of high level decisions. So if we can do that for the everyday person, what are the things that we can get off their plate so they can think for the most critical thing, especially if they're thinking about health care? 00;13;45;27 - 00;14;09;00 Elisa Arepacochaga Yeah Michael Privitera, M.D. Are we having enough protection of the lesser needed types of things? Take that off their plate so they have that function for the high level and executive function goes, if we're highly stressed. Yeah. It's one of the last things to develop in evolution for us as humans. So it's sensitive to setbacks easily. That's the irony. We're not bulletproof is the point. 00;14;09;07 - 00;14;27;09 Elisa Arespacochaga Yeah absolutely. So let's talk about an example where some of these interventions that you just laid out actually lead to improvement. I know you've done this work, in your role at University of Rochester. How is this making measurable improvement in clinician well-being and patient safety? 00;14;27;11 - 00;14;52;05 Michael Privitera, M.D. Well, in terms of some of the examples, you know, it's like the well-meaning aspects of, mandatory education, for example, it was all meant for improving patient safety and quality. But since they're coming from different authorities, they added up in ways and trying to reconcile the different needs, understanding the quantity, no resource provided for doing them. For example, you had to do them and finding time for them somehow. 00;14;52;09 - 00;15;13;08 Michael Privitera, M.D. All those things, when we took this on as our wellness committee, first thing we did is just list them all, put them all together and all the sources they came from. And then we shared that together with Quality and Safety Office and Education office. And immediately the first week when they looked at everything, 20% were taken right off. 00;15;13;11 - 00;15;39;20 Michael Privitera, M.D. So 20% went away to the gratefulness of most of the clinicians, realizing that so many things accumulated over time, they weren't kind of monitor it enough. And that happens because they come from different offices. That's one just in the major measurement of well-being. What we use a well-being index in 2018 and three years later, we reduced burnout by about 14% by 2021. 00;15;39;23 - 00;15;59;29 Michael Privitera, M.D. I love the term that you've told me about Elisa. This was back in the days when it wasn't cool to work on burnout, and I was in that stage and boy, was it uphill. The culture is strong. Yeah, and also the feeling that there's no limit to the brain power and the fact that they're tired and they're up all night shouldn't affect your quality and safety. 00;15;59;29 - 00;16;25;21 Michael Privitera, M.D. Where I don't know where we got that image from, but it part of it is our medical culture, especially as things have expanded. We really are having a hard time doing that safely nowadays. And if you think about the 14% reduction, we already know the research and how that converts to patient safety and the economic benefits. The study and surgeons high burnout was associated with a 200% increase risk of medical error. 00;16;25;21 - 00;16;31;11 Michael Privitera, M.D. So the benefits of the reduction are clear just by looking to correlations with the research. 00;16;31;13 - 00;16;45;08 Elisa Arespacochaga Absolutely. So, you know, when you brought this and you did this work, what role did leadership and what role can they play in addressing some of these challenges. So the leaders who are listening, what can they do to really engage in this? 00;16;45;10 - 00;17;19;00 Michael Privitera, M.D. Okay. Great questions. And part of what I've been doing for the last 14 years or so is trying to extract from human factors engineering, putting it into words that might make more sense to a layperson because we're not engineers in health care. That's been the process. So basically, realizing so many things from disparate authorities come through the C-suite, the CEO, chief financial officer, chief operations, etc. and realizing that is the opportunity for how we implement. How do we implement mandatories, how do we implement requirements? 00;17;19;03 - 00;17;44;11 Michael Privitera, M.D. It usually gets dispersed to many different offices. The whole idea from the human factors point of view is trying to get an idea of what are all the expectations going out? And that's we're connecting well-being with quality work, you start to see that these are all interacting. If you understand what's happening to our brain, there's no doubt all this overloaded is affecting patient safety and quality. 00;17;44;11 - 00;18;10;26 Michael Privitera, M.D. Plus, it's the unspoken reason why people keep leaving. So basically, trying to get an idea of acknowledging that this cognitive load is a real thing. And the more we start to understand it, try to understand it in leadership positions, some of the basics of what this means in terms of cognitive load. A great work that has been really instrumental in me understanding what to do in health care organizations is by William Passmore. 00;18;10;28 - 00;18;38;18 Michael Privitera, M.D. Two really great things is designing effective organization, socio-technical systems perspective. That's a book he wrote in 1988. He kind of did predict our current situation by not dealing with the balance of people and technology. Right now, we're in the process of kind of buying tech, buying tech, buying tech, and we're finding that the people adjusting to all those learning curves or how they interact kind of get in the way of process. 00;18;38;20 - 00;18;56;22 Michael Privitera, M.D. You know, people know how to take care of the patient. They can't make it happen through the tech or other things like that. So realizing these are real things, the more we know about it. Taking on halo bias is another. Halo bias is something because it might have a term patient safety or quality associated with it, we don't push back on the science. 00;18;56;24 - 00;19;21;02 Michael Privitera, M.D. It already gets in the door because it's got that term. My point is, when you see if they're coming and there's so many of them, maybe it's not quality or safety anymore. Maybe it's actually doing the reverse and it's causing a problem because it's all totaled together. Understand how and where the impact is being felt. So that's feedback systems - try to get feedback systems from front lines back to leadership, frontline leadership. 00;19;21;04 - 00;19;45;03 Michael Privitera, M.D. The way we're structured now, there's a communication flow: national state, industry leadership and requirements go through the C-suite down to clinicians. It's mostly a one-way communication. We don't have a feedback system to send a really critical. So the more we can do about getting more regular surveys, the psychosocial safety that's needed for being able to speak up if there's an issue is critical. 00;19;45;03 - 00;20;01;00 Michael Privitera, M.D. So that culture is really important. So actually health care leaders have a big key in improvement. And they can really do a lot more than they know right now. So the more that we understand about human factors, I really believe it's a way out of our struggles. 00;20;01;03 - 00;20;22;03 Elisa Arespacochaga Oh, absolutely. I couldn't agree more with some of the things you said. I think the building those feedback loops give you so much opportunity to understand because you don't know until you walk in someone's shoes to some extent, or get their feedback what it is to be them and to do their job. And we keep adding...in healthcare, we tend to be a little bad at taking things away. 00;20;22;06 - 00;20;40;12 Elisa Arespacochaga Yeah. And de-implementing. I know that's one of Krasinski's favorite words and I love to use it, but how do we de-implement some of the things that we've put in place? Oh, Mike, you have been really just such a shining light on this issue. I know you're - at least for me - you were the person who explained it to me and helped me understand it. 00;20;40;12 - 00;21;03;08 Elisa Arespacochaga And I just want to thank you so much for sharing your expertise, your experiences, all of the work that you've done over the last 14 years, trying to figure out how to make us a kinder, gentler, and safer place to work and continuing to do it even though you're, you know, enjoying a well-deserved vacation. But thank you again for joining me and sharing just a little bit about the work that you've done. 00;21;03;10 - 00;21;25;27 Elisa Arespacochaga If your organization has not signed up with the AHA Patient Safety Initiative, I absolutely encourage you to join us. You can gain a wealth of information and resources and collaborative opportunities and get to talk to people as awesome as Mike. So please sign up on the AHA Patient Safety Initiative web page. Thank you for listening and I hope you have a wonderful day. 00;21;25;27 - 00;21;26;21 Elisa Arespacochaga Thanks again Mike. 00;21;26;21 - 00;21;30;08 Michael Privitera, M.D. Thank you Elisa for your continuing support. 00;21;30;11 - 00;21;38;20 Tom Haederle Thanks for listening to Advancing Health. Please subscribe and write us five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. </details> </div> Mon, 22 Jul 2024 09:49:40 -0500 Clinician Well-being Subcommittee advances bills to reauthorize programs to support health care workers, pediatric emergency care /news/headline/2024-03-13-committee-advances-bills-reauthorize-programs-support-health-care-workers-pediatric-emergency-care The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee March 12 passed <a href="/news/headline/2024-01-30-bill-would-reauthorize-lorna-breen-health-care-provider-protection-act">AHA-supported</a>  legislation to reauthorize through 2029 the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act (H.R. 7153), which provides grants to help health care organizations offer behavioral health services for front-line health care workers. The bill also would reauthorize a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/impactwellbeing/default.html">national campaign</a>  that provides hospital leaders with evidence-based solutions to support worker well-being. Without congressional action, the law will expire at the end of this year. &nbsp;&nbsp; Among other <a href="https://energycommerce.house.gov/events/health-subcommittee-markup-of-19-bills">actions</a>, the subcommittee passed legislation (H.R. 6960) to reauthorize the Emergency Medical Services for Children Program, which provides funding for equipment and training to help hospitals and paramedics treat pediatric emergencies. AHA advocated for funding the program at $28 million for fiscal year 2024.&nbsp; Wed, 13 Mar 2024 15:02:20 -0500 Clinician Well-being The Well-being Impact of Northwestern Medicine's Scholars of Wellness Program /advancing-health-podcast/2023-12-15-well-being-impact-northwestern-medicines-scholars-wellness-program In recent years, American health care has become acutely aware of the importance of well-being for its workers. To address the mental stresses of health care, Chicago’s Northwestern Medicine established the Scholars of Wellness program, focusing on understanding what well-being actually means, and how it can be woven into organizational culture. In this discussion, Gaurava Agarwal, M.D., vice president and chief wellness executive at Northwestern Medicine and director of faculty wellness at Northwestern University, and Samantha Saggese, physician assistant of nephrology and hypertension at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, explain the difference the Scholars of Wellness program is making, and how it could be adopted for the benefit of hospitals and health systems across the nation.<hr><div></div><div class="raw-html-embed"> <div class="raw-html-embed"> <details class="transcript"> <summary> <h2 title="Click here to open/close the transcript."> View Transcript &nbsp; </h2> </summary> 00;00;00;21 - 00;00;24;25 Tom Haederle In recent years, American health care has become acutely aware of the importance of well-being, personal and professional, among care providers. Top quality patient care is easier to deliver for physicians, nurses and other team members if they're operating at the top of their game. Chicago's Northwestern medicine has created an innovative program to elevate the importance of provider well-being across the entire organization, 00;00;25;00 - 00;01;10;07 Tom Haederle department by department. Its Scholars of Wellness program has been expanded to bridge and create connections across professions by bringing advanced practice providers into the group. Welcome to Advancing Health, a podcast from the �� Association. I'm Tom Haederle with AHA Communications. Northwestern Medicine's Scholars of Wellness program focuses on teaching and understanding of what well-being is and how it can be woven into the culture of an organization at the local or departmental level. 00;01;10;10 - 00;01;24;25 Tom Haederle In this podcast, two experts from Northwestern join the AHA’s Elisa Areaspacochaga,, vice president of Clinical Affairs and Workforce, to discuss the difference the Scholars of Wellness program is making and how it could be adopted almost everywhere. 00;01;24;28 - 00;01;57;14 Elisa Areapacochaga Thanks, Tom. I'm Elisa Arespacochaga, vice president for Clinical Affairs and Workforce. And today I'm joined by Dr. Gaurav Agarwal, vice President and Chief Wellness Executive at Northwestern Medicine and director of Faculty Wellness at Northwestern University. And Samantha Saggese, physician assistant in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Really excited about today's conversation. Talk about well-being, the work that this team has done through the Scholars of Wellness program and the expansion to working with their APP colleagues. 00;01;57;16 - 00;02;04;16 Elisa Areapacochaga So just to get us started and introduce yourselves a little, I'll start with you, G, if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and your role. 00;02;04;18 - 00;02;35;22 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. Sure. Thank you and great to be with you again, Lisa. Again, Gaurav Agarwal, everyone just calls me G. I serve as our chief executive. I'm a psychiatrist in organizational well-being and leadership coach by training and I've had a chance to lead our well-being efforts at Northwestern Medicine. First, starting with our physicians, frankly, before the pandemic started, and then through the pandemic and over the last year or so, taking over this role of chief executive that looks over the well-being of our entire workforce. 00;02;35;24 - 00;02;36;25 Elisa Areapacochaga And Sam. 00;02;36;28 - 00;02;58;22 Samantha Saggese Thank you, Elisa. Thanks for have me on the podcast today. It's a real honor. I first joined Northwestern as a student actually back in 2017. I moved to Chicago from the Boston area, and then I joined the Division of Nephrology on their inpatient consults service in 2019, and I met G through my participation in Scholars of Wellness this past year. 00;02;58;24 - 00;03;10;03 Samantha Saggese My project, which we'll talk a little bit about, was focused on peer support for advanced practice providers. And coming up, I will be serving as the Office of Well-Being APP liaison for Northwestern Medicine. 00;03;10;06 - 00;03;12;02 Elisa Areapacochaga Wonderful. And congratulations. 00;03;12;04 - 00;03;12;27 Samantha Saggese Thank you. 00;03;12;29 - 00;03;38;00 Elisa Areapacochaga G, let's start with you. I know you've had a lot of success with the Scholars Wellness Program. I know you've spoken at HRA conferences and others, and it's allowed you to create this, for lack of a better term army of wellbeing champions across the organization. Can you give us just the quick thumbnail sketch of the program and how you've started to spread that now outside of the physician community and particularly to APPs? 00;03;38;02 - 00;04;17;29 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. Yeah, absolutely. Scholars of wellness is our flagship program. It's sort of the engine that runs our Office of Well-Being program for the reasons you stated. I remember when someone first came to me and said, Hey, you know, we'd like for you to think about wellness. And I said, Me and who else? Because I said that that doesn't seem like a very effective plan, because I really do believe that if we define wellness as really providing a superior work environment to the people that work at our organization, you know, in my view, wellness has to be locally led because those folks know how their departments divisions work for the best and they know how 00;04;17;29 - 00;04;41;24 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. they want to provide the best patient care for their patients. And so we have to listen to them about those sorts of issues. Where we can help them, though, so that they're actually effective, empowered change agents around wellness, is to really provide them with the skills and knowledge that we think you need to be able to craft a work environment that is optimal. 00;04;41;26 - 00;05;07;02 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. And what we sort of reflected on was these sort of three buckets. One was we do need to understand the science of well-being and how well-being really does work in particularly the health care setting, but in work settings in general. You have to understand how to do process improvement in project management if you're going to make changes in the actual workflows and work environments. 00;05;07;02 - 00;05;33;22 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. Those systemic drivers of well-being that we're well aware are at the root of health care professional fulfillment. And number three, and something that we have found is the secret sauce is you have to have some understanding of how change management and change leadership will work. When you are working within a system and we felt that those were oftentimes lacking in our clinicians because that's frankly what we did not spend time learning in our training. 00;05;33;22 - 00;05;54;01 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. So we wanted to be able to provide a curriculum and professional development program that provided those three sets of skills. And to do that in a setting where people would actually apply those skills in real time to a project of their choosing. So as we all know, you don't learn something until you actually put it in practice and see how it works in the real world. 00;05;54;01 - 00;06;05;00 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. And, and by doing that, we think that helps consolidate folks knowledge and really create a lot of momentum, both as leaders and through these pilot projects that they stand up for Northwestern. 00;06;05;03 - 00;06;19;04 Elisa Areapacochaga That's awesome. And you reminded me of something my father always used to say to me whenever I said, Oh no, I totally understand it. He would say, All right, explain it to me. And then when I couldn't explain it, you'd be like, All right, let's go over it again. So I love that you make it very real and actionable. 00;06;19;04 - 00;06;41;15 Elisa Areapacochaga And in the moment of, let's learn this skill, now let's go use it. Understand how it works. So continuing on that theme, what do you think has made this expansion of this work ... you had a lot of success with physicians in expanding it, to now the APPS and looking to really look at the overall well-being of all of your team. 00;06;41;18 - 00;06;45;17 Elisa Areapacochaga How has that been successful and what do you think has been the winning strategy there? 00;06;45;19 - 00;07;14;14 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. Yeah, I think for us, when when we were charged with moving from looking over the well-being of physicians to the entire workforce, we sort of had a decision to make and that was how do we continue to be effective without feeling like we have to boil the ocean? Because I find that that's usually where people fail or they begin to really create stuff that is pretty frankly superficial and people don't feel us then. 00;07;14;16 - 00;07;37;00 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. And so we wanted to say, okay, how can we find a group of folks that we really want to do a deep dive on and better understand their drivers? Because, you know, as a doc, I sort of feel like I understand physicians, but I was well aware that I wasn't sure what the actual drivers of professional for them were for our APPs. 00;07;37;00 - 00;08;07;25 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. But what I did know was our organizational data and national data, which showed that APPs were struggling. And so I said, Well, this seems like a group of individuals that has some similarities to our physician drivers is frankly small enough that I could actually do a deep dive and that we had partners that were ready to allow us to to engage with them and, you know, really welcomed us with open arms. 00;08;07;25 - 00;08;28;19 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. I think those three factors were really key in the change management part of this. We were also lucky enough to receive an all in grant to help with this expansion of the Scholars of Wellness. And that really allowed us, you know, the networking resources, the financial resources to expand the program to our APPs across our 11 hospitals. 00;08;28;22 - 00;08;55;28 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. And then, you know, the first thing we did was really connect with our APP directors. We have three of them at Northwestern Medicine, and like I said, they began to explain to us the leadership infrastructure that we have for APPs. How would we begin to select and recruit our scholars and our APPs and which projects were really high need and that had sort of been on the back burner in some cases. 00;08;56;01 - 00;09;16;20 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. And they said, you know, we'd love to have your expertise, help us actually launch these programs that we know our APPs are are yearning for. And I think all those factors really led to a very successful expansion last year. And this year we're going to continue on with our program, with our APPs across the system and actually frankly, add our pharmacists as well. 00;09;16;22 - 00;09;37;04 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. And I think I'll finish with one point is, you know, as we start thinking about workload and how workload continues to explode post-pandemic, you know, it started to occur to me that we really only have two options because the workload isn't going to get less, I don't think. We really have technology which, you know, I hope hope serves us well. 00;09;37;04 - 00;10;06;05 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. But I'm always nervous to rely solely on technology to save us. And if it's not technology, then it's teamwork. And we had to figure out how to create high functioning teams. And we thought that one way that we could do that was by beginning to have cross collaboration or collaboration with a program like this, where people can really begin to get to know each other, work with each other, and begin to understand what drivers each one is facing. 00;10;06;08 - 00;10;30;00 Elisa Areapacochaga You know, absolutely. I think the the more you can break down those barriers between people and get them started working on a project, giving them a purpose and and a shared goal is a great way to start building some of that teamwork. And certainly the demographics would back you up with 10,000 baby boomers retiring a day. I don't think we're going to see any decrease in the number of patients being served. 00;10;30;00 - 00;10;47;11 Elisa Areapacochaga So, Sam, let me turn to you. And as one of the most recent graduates of the Scholars of Wellness program, can you talk a little bit about your experiences? A participant in one of the first to the APP class of participants and maybe focus on what you found most meaningful of the work? 00;10;47;14 - 00;11;16;07 Samantha Saggese You know, for me, SOW was obviously wellness - we call it SOW - was such a unique experience because it allowed me to finally take off my clinical hat for a little while where I spent so much energy on the patient well-being and try on a new hat, really focusing on provider and colleague well-being. And when I talk to other colleagues and to friends about this program that I participated in, it really takes almost no explanation as to why it's important. 00;11;16;10 - 00;11;38;23 Samantha Saggese You know, it's no secret that work like this is really essential in today's climate. And for me personally, I loved learning the science behind employee well-being. I thought it was fascinating. I also thought it was just such a cool opportunity to make connections with colleagues and departments that I rarely get to overlap with, especially for me working in internal medicine subspecialty. 00;11;38;23 - 00;12;02;29 Samantha Saggese I don't often overlap with certain surgical specialties and anesthesia and really get to get fresh perspectives from people all around the hospital. And what I found so meaningful about this work is really understanding that it doesn't take huge sweeping changes to improve the day to day experience for colleagues, you know, getting a big pay bump or improving employee benefits. 00;12;03;06 - 00;12;27;06 Samantha Saggese This is obviously going to improve well-being. But for the vast majority of us, this is not within our sphere of influence. And so what we do have influence to change are the small things or the pebble in the shoe, as G likes to call it. And these things really can make life better for all of us. And I got this opportunity to hear what other people are doing in their divisions, and it just set off alarm bells for me to bring back to my own division. 00;12;27;08 - 00;12;50;17 Samantha Saggese And so I've already started to kind of copy and paste some solutions that other scholars have implemented, like QR codes that lead to quick abbreviated feedback forms for trainees or a straightforward survey to collect and organize provider vacation requests. And I'm trying to bring these back into my own division and see how we might be able to incorporate them. 00;12;50;19 - 00;13;16;17 Elisa Areapacochaga That's awesome. Yeah. Sometimes it's the smallest changes that can make a difference for people. So let's talk a little bit about how this has and I don't know if this is something you planned from the beginning or not, but how it's helped really benefit that relationship between your APP colleagues and the physicians they work with and how it's improved those relationships. 00;13;16;19 - 00;13;42;21 Samantha Saggese Yeah. So as she mentioned, this was the first year that we had a blended class of scholars, so including both APPS and physicians working side by side and learning side by side. And at Northwestern it's commonly APPS and physicians really are already working side by side as colleagues in the clinical setting. And so this was unique in that it kind of mirrored that in a professional development settings. Within our APP community 00;13;42;21 - 00;14;08;22 Samantha Saggese at Northwestern, we have a ton of enthusiasm for advancing our professions and expanding opportunities for APPS to grow in their careers. But oftentimes these opportunities are specific to APPS and we're not commonly blending with physician colleagues during these professional development series. And so being able to learn from one another and really feel as though we're all moving through the experience together was truly unique. 00;14;08;25 - 00;14;40;05 Samantha Saggese And while there is a fair amount of overlap between drivers of fulfillment for APPs and physicians, there are some nuances that I feel like said APPS apart, but maybe most physicians aren't aware of. And so specifically the experience of an APP may have at their place at work can just really vary greatly depending on the environment. And so for me personally, I realized over my years of being a provider that I'm very lucky that the physicians I work with have been supportive of my development from day one. 00;14;40;08 - 00;15;06;05 Samantha Saggese And through this I grew as a provider and I built trust with my colleagues. And now I can say that within my field I'm practicing near the top of my license. However, for a lot of other APPS, roles can sometimes be loosely defined, and this is a huge source of stress. And physicians who may just not be familiar with an APP or what they're capable of might use them in roles that are more akin to a resident or a scribe. 00;15;06;08 - 00;15;30;29 Samantha Saggese And so not practicing to our full scope can feel demeaning to a provider and really leave APPS feeling like their skill set that they work so hard to attain is just not being appreciated. And so, you know, for me personally, I was probably the least tenured provider at the table during this this class. And so sometimes I feel intimidated among more senior APPs, let alone among some of my physician colleagues. 00;15;31;02 - 00;15;55;01 Samantha Saggese But the group dynamic honestly just put me at ease. It showed me that this is a community of providers that really was invested in learning from one another, regardless of background or years of experience. And so I really feel like representation for APPS and this sort of environment is essential to promoting a culture of mutual respect between APPS and physicians and really we were all just there to learn from one another. 00;15;55;03 - 00;16;12;05 Elisa Areapacochaga That's awesome. G, let me ask you to throw in your thoughts from the physician perspective. You know, are were there any places where you saw, oh, this is really benefiting our ability to better work with and partner with our APPS? 00;16;12;08 - 00;16;34;03 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. Yeah, You know, I mean, I think for me I was nervous actually. Our initial thought was to create a separate program, one for physicians, one for APPs, because I didn't know if one of the things I love about the program having run it for a few years is physicians sort of let down their hair and talk openly about their struggles. 00;16;34;03 - 00;16;48;06 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. I didn't know if they would go back into the sort of doctor mode if the APPS were there and sort of buttoned up, and I didn't want that because I really do think that is a huge part of our success. But as we sort of played with it a little while, they said, you know, I think it'll be okay. 00;16;48;06 - 00;17;10;14 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. I think, as Sam said, we work a lot together with APPS and I think we'll be able to do it. And I think the teamwork benefit outweighed the risk, if you will. And so when it happened, it was it seems obvious now. It was it was great. And I have a story from it that that sort of was our "Aha" moment. 00;17;10;14 - 00;17;40;08 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. I think it was, I think it was month two, when we actually had an anesthesiologist in a CRNA name class. And I said, you know, a project I'm interested in working on is when we have M&amp;Ms or we have grand rounds. I don't know if you all noticed, but no one asks us what happened. I was the one doing the institution in the room, but everyone asked the anesthesiologist or they asked the resident about the case. 00;17;40;08 - 00;18;01;01 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. Yet I was the person actually in the case doing the work, and you should have seen the looks on people's faces around the table where the docs were like, Oh my God, what are we doing? Like, this is just is so obvious, but not to us and be able to hear that story and to see the looks of like, we got it, we have to be better. 00;18;01;03 - 00;18;20;27 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. These are the moments that make people feel like they belong somewhere, that make people feel valued. We talk about recognition and appreciation all the time, but recognition and appreciation aren't about thank you's that are about knowing that I matter and that I'm here and and I add value. So for me, that was clear what we were trying to do. 00;18;20;27 - 00;18;53;24 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. And you know, if I can share some data, we actually looked at this pre and post and on all these metrics, both APPS and physicians reported nearly 30% increase in understanding what the other was dealing with from a professional fulfillment perspective. And also they each felt better understood by the other. They said, you know, I really am beginning to believe that physicians now get what we deal with or I'm beginning to understand, or I believe that APPS understand what we're dealing with. 00;18;53;24 - 00;19;02;23 Gaurava Agarwal, M.D. And so we're really proud of that data. In some ways, I think that accomplishes some bigger picture of the type of environment we're trying to create. 00;19;02;25 - 00;19;25;12 Elisa Areapacochaga That's fabulous. I just love that it's built that connection. So, Sam, let's come back to you. Tell me just really quickly a little bit about your project to bring the and I know this is something Northwestern has worked on, bring that peer support to the APPS, because I know that it's something Northwestern and G and I have talked about it before, but I didn't realize it 00;19;25;19 - 00;19;31;12 Elisa Areapacochaga was focused on the physician community at Northwestern, not beyond that. 00;19;31;14 - 00;20;01;06 Samantha Saggese Yeah, absolutely. So just to recap, so peer to peer is our peer support program that we have at Northwestern. It's confidential, it's voluntary, and it's meant to be utilized after a provider experiences a medical error, a near miss, an adverse patient outcome. And through this program a colleague is referred either by another colleague, by a manager or by risk, or they can self-refer and it's to receive emotional support from a trained peer supporter. 00;20;01;08 - 00;20;24;26 Samantha Saggese You know, the conversation has really focused on how the provider's coping. It's not meant to dissect talent error occurred. It's not an M&amp;M. We know from the literature, it's been cited over and over that there are just significant negative psychological effects that are felt by provider hours after and during a medical error. And there tends to be a focus in the literature around how these experiences affect physicians and nurses. 00;20;24;26 - 00;20;53;24 Samantha Saggese And while they haven't really focused too much on APPS, it's not a stretch to assume that we experience similar negative emotions after these events. So through my project, we were able to survey advanced practice providers at Northwestern and we found that events are occurring at similar rates and APPs adds to the published data for physicians and nurses and APPS do experience these identical negative emotions, anxiety and depression and avoidance after enduring a medical error. 00;20;53;26 - 00;21;22;27 Samantha Saggese And so then my project focus on expanding P2P our peer support program to APS. And now we have over 20 APPs that have been trained in providing emotional first aid to their colleagues after errors. I really feel like this is essential to rebuilding provider integrity after these events and as health care providers, for all empathetic by nature, we're a natural caregivers and unfortunately, medicine at its core can often promote a culture of perfectionism and blame 00;21;22;28 - 00;21;49;05 Samantha Saggese after these events, whether they're big or small. And so our goal with P2P is to cause a cultural shift of some sort into acceptance and understanding that at the end of the day, we are only human, and a single negative event doesn't negate all the positives the provider brings to the table. And what we found is the training process itself can just be an asset to the emotional well-being of the supporter. 00;21;49;07 - 00;22;05;13 Samantha Saggese Regardless if these conversations ever take place. Just knowing that they built these skillsets can really improve the well-being of people who just volunteer to do the supporting, as well as knowing that this program is in place and it's available to those who might need it in the future. 00;22;05;15 - 00;22;36;11 Elisa Areapacochaga That sounds amazing. I love that you're continuing to bring that to more colleagues because I'm not a clinician, but I can imagine the challenge that it must be and the sense of isolation that it comes with from my previous conversations. I want to thank you both so much for joining me today and for sharing your work. And I hope Sam come back and tell us about how your new role goes in a little bit as your take on the role of the APP liaison in the Office of Well-Being. 00;22;36;19 - 00;22;38;04 Samantha Saggese Absolutely. I look forward to it. </details> </div> </div> Fri, 15 Dec 2023 06:00:00 -0600 Clinician Well-being Health care workers: Thank you for taking care of us — and for taking care of yourselves /news/blog/2021-12-16-health-care-workers-thank-you-taking-care-us-and-taking-care-yourselves <h2>Six tips for health professionals to prioritize their mental well-being as we head into the holidays.</h2> Health care workers are trained to manage intensity in their everyday work while supporting patients who are experiencing serious illness and high-stress situations. However, the <a href="/2020-01-22-updates-and-resources-novel-coronavirus-2019-cov">COVID-19</a> pandemic has highlighted unprecedented challenges and pressures — from traumatic experiences related to the virus and its uncertainty, to challenges with patient care, to worries about keeping oneself and one’s family safe, to managing increased workload and isolation from limited social contact due to virus exposure. Health care workers are fighting to remain strong and resilient for their patients, families, friends and communities. However, the great personal sacrifices and risk they take to keep others safe and healthy can have a toll on their own mental health. The results have been felt in a layered impact, as these new developments compound prior challenges on health care workers that existed long before the pandemic: moral injury, frustrations with health system infrastructure and serious mental health impacts. The additional experiences during the pandemic have threatened the fragile balance of health care workers’ “well-being juggling act,” a process undertaken by most to ensure they remain stable and thriving. What we must remember is that even those who are trained to manage high-intensity situations and stress continue to face new challenges; they remain human. All human beings, regardless of training, pedigree or profession have mental health. It is imperative health professionals understand they are not alone. This is especially critical as we head into the holiday season, a time of year that 88% of adults refer to as the most stressful on the calendar. <h3>Here are six actions physicians and others can take to prioritize their mental health and wellbeing during this stressful time.</h3> <ol> <li>Have open, honest conversations about your mental health. When you are going through a stressful time, it can feel like you are alone. One of the simplest and most effective things you can do is talk to someone about what you’re experiencing. Transparent conversations about mental health and its influencing factors can open up opportunities for support and connection. These can, in turn, help build resiliency. And by being honest about how you are doing, you’re serving as a model for others. If you’re looking for guidance on how to start a conversation about mental health, you can download the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s <a href="https://afsp.org/realconvo">#RealConvo</a> guides. The AHA has recently released <a href="/suicideprevention/health-care-workforce">Suicide Prevention: Evidence-Informed Interventions for the Health Care Workforce</a>.</li> <li>Prioritize your mental health. If you find yourself overextended this holiday season, cut down on your holiday “to do” list. Doing so can free up your mind space and declutter a busy schedule.</li> <li>Do things that maintain your physical health. Taking care of yourself physically — whether it’s through regular stretching or exercise, drinking water or maintaining a regular sleep schedule — can help you to better navigate stressful periods. This isn’t always easy for health care workers who may be operating on an inconsistent schedule. Start by picking one thing to improve your physical health and do it as consistently as you can.</li> <li>Get outside during daylight hours. Having fewer hours of daylight can have a negative impact on your mood, especially for those who already struggle with mental health challenges. To help cope with less sunlight, try to find 30 minutes to get outside, walk somewhere instead of driving, or invite a friend or co-worker to take a daily walk. Some people benefit from purchasing a bright light for home or work.</li> <li>Find a balance between being with others and being alone. You may not always have the energy or desire to attend a large gathering. That’s OK! But it’s important not to completely isolate yourself. You can invite a couple of people to join you in a low-pressure activity. Consider planning an activity that has proven beneficial to your well-being in the past, whether it’s listening to or playing music, cooking, crafting, hiking or another outdoor activity.</li> <li>Connect with others if you’re feeling lonely. Chances are pretty good that you are not alone in feeling lonely during the holidays. Sharing these feelings may empower others to do the same. Reach out to a friend, family member, co-worker or trusted advisor and talk about ways you can stay connected and support each other. Think about the people in your life who have an encouraging impact; remember, you get to choose who to let into your inner circle. If you feel you have no one to turn to, there are trained professionals to listen and help, such as mental health providers. There are also support services available, including the 988 Suicide &amp; Crisis Lifeline (call 988), Crisis Text Line (text “HOME” to 741741) or the Physician Support Line (888-409-0141).</li> </ol> To all the health care workers out there who work tirelessly to keep us safe, and so often put others’ needs before their own: We see you and we appreciate you. We hope you’ll take these tips into consideration and prioritize putting yourself first this holiday season. Thanks for all that you do. Christine Yu Moutier, M.D., is chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Editor’s note: This article was originally published on AHA.org in December 2021 and has been slightly revised and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness. Tue, 13 Dec 2022 15:00:00 -0600 Clinician Well-being Addressing Well-Being | Strengthening the Health Care Workforce /workforce-strategies/ch1-addressing-well-being Thu, 01 Dec 2022 14:27:42 -0600 Clinician Well-being Improving Clinician Experience to Drive Well-Being /education-events/improving-clinician-experience-drive-well-being Hosted by the �� Association in partnership with Oracle Cerner&nbsp; Learn and share strategies on improving clinician well-being and how technology can play a critical role in supporting the clinical workforce. Join your hospital and health system executive peers for this virtual discussion.&nbsp;&nbsp; What We’ll Discuss&nbsp; <ul role="list"> <li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="1" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:630,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}" data-listid="30" role="listitem"> What signs of clinician burnout are you seeing in the field? What other needs or shortages are you experiencing that your organization needs to respond to?&nbsp; </li> <li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="2" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:630,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}" data-listid="30" role="listitem"> How is technology being used to help ease the burden on clinicians and which emerging technologies do you believe will provide a positive impact?&nbsp; </li> <li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="3" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:630,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}" data-listid="30" role="listitem"> What EHR-related actions have you taken that have had a positive impact on clinicians?&nbsp;&nbsp; </li> <li aria-setsize="-1" data-aria-level="1" data-aria-posinset="4" data-font="Symbol" data-leveltext="" data-list-defn-props="{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:630,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}" data-listid="30" role="listitem"> What ongoing training and coaching for clinicians do you provide? Do you use data to help drive this work?&nbsp; </li> </ul> Fri, 18 Nov 2022 09:16:37 -0600 Clinician Well-being AHA Statement on the National Academy of Medicine National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being /press-releases/2022-10-03-aha-statement-national-academy-medicine-national-plan-health-workforce Rick Pollack AHA President and CEO Robyn Begley, DNP, RN Chief nursing officer of the AHA and CEO of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership October 3, 2022 Health care workers play an absolutely critical role in treating patients and saving lives each and every day, and that fact has never been more evident than during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the reality is that the pandemic has only exacerbated the existing strain on our health care workforce. The National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being helps address the needs of the health care workforce by proposing actionable solutions, including eliminating regulatory and policy barriers that impede health care workers’ daily work. The National Plan also promotes innovative strategies and new research to improve well-being and mental health.&nbsp; The AHA is proud to contribute to the work of the National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience as we continue to develop resources to protect and optimize the well-being of current health care workers and future generations of clinicians.&nbsp; &nbsp;### Contact:&nbsp; &nbsp; Colin Milligan, cmilligan@aha.org &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Ben Teicher, bteicher@aha.org Mon, 03 Oct 2022 10:32:37 -0500 Clinician Well-being Collaborative releases draft national plan for health workforce well-being /news/headline/2022-05-20-collaborative-releases-draft-national-plan-health-workforce-well-being The National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience today released for public input through May 27 a <a href="https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/6858377/NAM-Health-Workforce-Well-Being-National-Plan-Feedback">draft National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being</a>, which builds on almost six years of work among 200 participants, including the AHA. The plan identifies goals and actions to help health care leaders, educators, governing boards and federal agencies achieve health workforce well-being across seven priority areas: positive work and learning environments and culture; measurement, assessment, strategies and research of well-being; mental health and stigma; compliance, regulatory and policy barriers for health workers’ daily work; effective technology tools; effects of COVID-19 on the health workforce; and recruitment of the next generation. AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack and AHA Chief Nursing Officer Robyn Begley, CEO of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, <a href="/press-releases/2022-05-20-aha-statement-national-academy-medicine-action-collaborative-clinician">said</a>, “When others ran from the pandemic, health care workers ran toward it to try to prevent the spread, care for the sick and save lives. The health care workforce has worked tirelessly to provide lifesaving care for patients but it has come with a heavy toll on their own well-being. The AHA is proud to be a member of the National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience to develop solutions to help our workforce ensure they have the support, resources and wellness programs to keep them mentally and physically healthy.” During a <a href="https://nam.edu/event/national-plan-for-health-workforce-well-being-public-input-webinar/">NAM webinar</a> today on the plan, Pollack shared two key takeaways from the hospital and health system perspective: the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated health disparities, lack of access to behavioral health care, and health care worker shortages and resiliency to the level of a national emergency; and solutions require collaborative efforts across the entire health system and its stakeholders. Fri, 20 May 2022 16:05:44 -0500 Clinician Well-being