The Business Case for Investing in Physician Wellbeing - a Triple Competitive Advantage for Your Organization

In this blog post let's look at what happens when you run physician burnout in reverse. Here's what I mean.

I had a stroke ten days ago.

It was a miracle that the interventional neuro team was in the hospital at 3:30 AM and sucked the clot out of my middle cerebral artery in time.

These days I scuff my left foot a little more than my right and my left pinkie does not hit the "A" key with the same precision and I fully acknowledge I am one darn lucky fella.

And my attitude?

This brushback pitch from the grim reaper has doubled my dedication to my personal mission.

Wednesday at 3 AM I woke up flopping around on my bedroom floor.

I had to pee and was unable to stand up from the bed so I slid myself onto the floor thinking it would be easier to get up from there.

A short lesson on why working ON your Practice rather than just IN it is so very important for Lightworkers like You and Me.

The hidden patterns in Physician Wellness

As a physician coach since 2010, I focus on helping physicians build a much better practice and become a much more effective leader.

At this point, I have been extremely fortunate to accumulate 40,000 doctors worth of coaching and training experience since 2010. It has been a rich and rewarding learning experience.

This perspective has revealed clear patterns  -- a set of habits nearly all happy, healthy physicians use to create and maintain that positive state, even in these very difficult times. Without these habits to protect your connection to Purpose as a Lightworker, physician burnout is a constant threat to you and your family. 

This is the latest in a series of posts about these Seven  Habits of Physician Wellbeing.

This is Blog Post #415 - The full library is Here

I launched my website and physician coaching practice back in 2010.

Since then our team has trained and coached over 40,000 doctors to recognize, prevent and recover from burnout.

Along the way, our work has revealed what I believe to be a universal set of habits that create a state of wellbeing and satisfaction in practicing physicians - no matter what your specialty or how many hats you wear at work.

For over 50 years, hundreds of research studies have demonstrated this consistent hierarchy
- Physician Wellness is the Foundation for Physician Engagement and Performance.

The Health, Happiness and Wellbeing of your Physicians and Staff will determine:

⇒ Their levels of Engagement and Satisfaction

⇒ The ease of Recruitment and the amount of Turnover in the patient care teams

⇒ The Quality of their care

⇒ The Quantity of care they can deliver

⇒ The Safety of that care and the number of Medical Errors

⇒ The level of Patient Satisfaction

[ and even the Net Promoter Score if that is what keeps you up at night ]

NOTICE:
PHYSICIAN WELLBEING COMES FIRST 

WELLBEING begets ENGAGEMENT which begets PERFORMANCE
⇒ IN THAT ORDER

No doctor should hesitate to participate in a Physician Wellness Program because of the risk of discoverability and judgement down the road.

• What if the state medical board finds out?
• What if my specialty society or the insurance companies that are our payors find out?

These should never be questions you worry about before you reach out for support.  With burnout rates of 40%+ and over 400 physician suicides a year in the USA alone, we must do all we can to remove barriers to doctors asking for and receiving support in their time of need.

Legislation to provide immunity to Wellness Program participants is an important piece of this effort.

Unfortunately, here in the USA, we are a nation of states. This immunity from discoverability will have to come via state laws.

Good News ...
there appears to be an immunity support wave building in state legislatures around the country. It is still early and now the count is three!

August 2020 is Civic Health Month - Healthcare Supporting Voting and Voter Registration in 2020

There is a new movement at the intersection of Medicine and Politics here in 2020.

Will recent recommendations of the National Academy of Medicine cause meaningful action to address the burnout epidemic?

• Will we look back 10 years from now and say 2020 is when everything changed?
• Do calls for a "positive work environment" mean anything when there are no recommendations on HOW to accomplish that feat? 
• What happens in the C-suite when this call to address physician burnout clashes with the organization's drive to maximize profit and shareholder value? (even non-profits must have a margin!)

In this blog post let's do two things:

2) Give you a copy of the full recommendations so you can do two things:

1. 1. Print off two copies and carry them with you at all times.
   2. So when the opportunity arises, you can drop them on your CEO/CMO/CFO's desk and ask that they be adopted in your organization. If your boss can be influenced by consensus statements like this, you want to be ready for their teachable moment.