The relentless waves of the COVID-19 pandemic have posed an enduring threat to the well-being of healthcare professionals worldwide. However, what stands out is the overarching consensus among the UCSD Department of Family Medicine faculty members: they reported that their overall well-being either remained stable or remarkably improved in the face of this global health crisis. There has clearly been a sea change in workplace morale at UCSDH, and several themes contributed to the stars aligning in support of physician well-being. Timing is everything, and the emergence of the Primary Care Revolt ahead of a global pandemic couldn’t have been more opportune. Physicians’ self-advocacy in the face of extensive frustration created a new path. The shift to shared governance with increased physician agency in clinical operations served as a powerful example of a physician-driven initiative that was ultimately embraced by administration and folded into the Primary Care Redesign principles. Furthermore, new engaged administrative leaders, who play a critical role in Primary Care Operations, helped create a partnership between the clinical and business sides of service delivery. While the interests of physicians and health care administrators are often at odds, the organization has successfully aligned these interests in support of a common goal of improved health care delivery and physician well-being.
The institutional focus for the last few years has been on reducing the clinical burden of work through Primary Care Redesign; while some interventions have missed the mark, the overall benefit has been palpable. Effectively utilizing team-based care in ambulatory care practice can decrease clinicians’ burden of work and improve quality of life at work, even in the face of significant challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Prescription refill support and inbox coverage for physicians were two of the most impactful interventions. However, shortcomings in communication remain a focus of several ongoing pressure points. The centralized Care Navigation Hub has been identified as problematic, with a unifying theme being the negative effect of centralization on patient care. In a perfect world, the Primary Care Redesign would have been a bedrock of a “culture of support” from the outset, but in the interest of centralization and focus on practice efficiency strategies, personal touch and adequate embedded support were lost. Furthermore, some felt that while the idea of ancillary population health services of social work, case management, and pharmaceutical management is a good one, the communication from these team members regarding the efforts they were making was seen as suboptimal, which could complicate care delivery. As for Flow, the idea of lean, highly reliable health care delivery models has great potential to improve the physician, staff and patient experience, but adequate and sustained continuity support staff is essential to its success and maintenance. Furthermore, while respondents describe autonomy as paramount to physician wellness, they also report the need for greater standardization. Health systems should be cognizant of this, ensuring that there is uniformity throughout a department or division while preserving the right of the physician to still maintain some autonomy.
The need for comprehensive support of academic physicians emerged organically in several interviews and bears further study. Academic physicians have a myriad of identities and responsibilities — not only as clinicians, but as educators and scholars. Being asked to take on additional academic responsibilities with insufficient training, preparation, and compensation is a source of burnout, especially when added to under-resourced clinical operations. Institutional investment to support all three missions (clinical, teaching, and scholarly work) is imperative to support a thriving faculty physician workforce.
Taken together, our findings bolster existing evidence in favor of burnout prevention strategies such as management support, physician autonomy, providing social services for patients, and increased staffing, administrative time, and communication.7,12,13 Our findings also support the claim that COVID-19 offered a strategic opening to continue advancing physician wellness efforts, with more attention being given to the mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing of providers.18 Future studies should evaluate a variety of approaches to striking a balance between clinical practice standardization and autonomy in burnout prevention programs. More research is needed to determine how best to organize triage and call centers to minimize the unintended negative consequences of centralization. Lastly, evidence on effectiveness of ways to support academic physicians in their research and teaching pursuits is needed. In addition to financial resources and technical support, research mentors and robust research team support are needed in academic health systems.
This study carries some limitations. It focused on a single department within one academic health system, which may limit the generalizability of findings. The experience of the pandemic might have influenced the interpretation of the long-term impact of certain measures; benefits may have been more pronounced when the healthcare system was not in crisis mode. Nevertheless, this study contributes to the literature by highlighting the effects of faculty advocacy for shared governance and institutional investments in team-based care in improving physician well-being. We find that greater autonomy and reduced workload while maintaining quality of care are key pillars to improving physician wellness.