I’m part of WellDOM, the Wellness initiative within the Department of Medicine at University of Colorado. As such, I continue to support the idea of Sprints, the way we boost physician and team efficiency and effectiveness using the Electronic Health Record. However, we know that a large part of physician burnout and wellness have to do with other components: a Culture of Wellness and Personal Resilience, in addition to Practice Efficiency.
In thinking more about these broader components, I’m reminded of the work of Robert Putnam’ Bowling Alone, a towering work, documenting the decline of civic virtue and engagement in this country, illustrated most profoundly by the fact that membership in bowling leagues has declined 40% from 1980 to 1993, while individual bowlers rose by 10%. There has been a dramatic drop in face-to-face social gatherings outside of work in the past few decades, and the thought is that this decline in the social fabric has led to isolation, loneliness, and a general decline in civility and personal resilience. See the recent Atlantic article “Kicking in Groups” on this, also.
We’re looking for objective measures that might allow us to survey for and detect burnout and resilience, that might get past ‘soft’ measures like “do you feel burned out” and perhaps measure “Do you have social groups that you meet with regularly at work” or “Do you have social groups that you meet with regularly outside of work”, and also “Do you meet regularly with a mentor or mentee?” We believe that measuring such behaviors MIGHT be a more objective way to determine who is more protected, and who is vulnerable, to burnout.
CMIO’s take? Physician/provider burnout is a real thing; difficult to address; and may be embedded in a larger change in the social fabric. Are you having success thinking about and intervening in this fraught area? Let me know.
