Our Approach to Enhancing Well-Being at Stanford

At the WellMD & WellPhD Center, we engage leaders at every level to identify needs and catalyze well-being improvement for physicians and scientists. Our approach, rooted in the Stanford Model of Occupational Well-Being™, extends beyond simply addressing burnout. It provides a comprehensive framework that guides our initiatives to enhance overall well-being throughout Stanford Medicine.

A Collaborative Strategy for Success

A robust well-being strategy relies on collaboration and a deep understanding of the factors that contribute to burnout and professional fulfillment. While individuals can take steps to prevent burnout, these efforts only address part of the problem. Much of occupational well-being is tied to systemic challenges within the organization and the broader professional culture.

Therefore, we encourage leaders to focus on these systemic issues. Our approach involves holistic assessments to identify unique challenges and opportunities within our organization. By collaborating with both system-level and local-level leaders, we implement targeted interventions that address the fundamental components of well-being, tailored to meet the needs of the entire system as well as individual departments and teams.

Key Components of Our Well-Being Strategy

Foundational Programs

We implement evidence-informed programs and initiatives to target drivers of professional fulfillment and burnout. These include:

  • Safety net resources: Support for physicians and scientists in distress, or who are navigating significant life transitions. 
  • Self-care offerings: Evidence-informed programs designed to promote personal well-being. 
  • Community-building initiatives: Programs that foster collegiality and a sense of belonging.

Ongoing Assessment

The Center conducts regular assessments of well-being and its key drivers through the Stanford Doctor Survey™, the Stanford Scientist Survey™, and other feedback sources. We then share the results with clinical and operational leaders throughout the organization and work to empower them to address areas of opportunity that the surveys reveal.  

Collaborating to Identify Opportunities and Catalyze Change

The premise that promoting professional fulfillment and mitigating burnout requires organization-wide change, with shared responsibility for advancing well-being at every organizational level, is foundational to the work of the Center. We collaborate with system and local leaders to identify needs and catalyze change. Through various channels, including direct feedback, focus groups, and our quarterly Physician Wellness Forum (PWF), individuals can voice their concerns and contribute to meaningful change. Our Department Well-Being Directors (DWBDs) play a crucial role in facilitating communication between physicians and leadership, ensuring that emerging issues are identified and addressed effectively.

Culture Transformation

The Center aims to shift the organizational conversation around well-being for physicians and scientists to promote a culture of self-compassion, vulnerability, and authenticity, as with the I am Human initiative. This also involves fostering leadership behaviors that support professional fulfillment, promoting shared responsibility for well-being, and establishing a network of change agents within each department. By creating visibility and accountability for well-being metrics, we reinforce the idea that supporting physician well-being is a collective responsibility.

A Dynamic Approach to Improvement

Our strategy encompasses both immediate and long-term initiatives to promote well-being at Stanford Medicine. We employ a rapid, iterative experimental model to identify key drivers of burnout and professional fulfillment. Through this process, we develop, pilot, iterate, and scale innovative interventions, ensuring that we only advance proven solutions that effectively enhance well-being.

Sustainability Through Strategic Alignment

To maximize the impact of all well-being efforts, we emphasize strategic alignment, prioritization, and collaboration among varied stakeholders, from individuals to system leadership. Guided by the common goals that underlie our organizational priorities, we strive to promote shared values in partnership at every level. This holistic approach ensures the sustainability of our initiatives and ongoing support for physician and scientist well-being.

Like the translational science approach, the rapid, iterative well-being experimental model first identifies and characterizes the target, then pilots novel programs to impact that target, rigorously evaluates their efficacy, refines the intervention based on results, and only scales programs after they have been both proven effective and optimized.