Background

• The Impact Wellbeing campaign helps hospital leaders build a system where healthcare workers thrive.
  • While many hospitals have made strides to address healthcare worker wellbeing, it is critical to go beyond encouraging self-care.^2,5
  • Individual resources for the healthcare workforce offer a strong starting point in providing support, but addressing workplace policies and practices is the best way to reduce burnout and strengthen professional wellbeing.¹
• Although some causes of burnout may take time to address, there are many feasible ways to champion a healthy workforce and hospital system.
  • Small steps like creating a professional wellbeing team, regular two-way communication with your workforce, or removing intrusive mental health questions on credentialing applications can markedly improve professional wellbeing.^1,6
• Through the Impact Wellbeing campaign, NIOSH offers customizable and evidence-informed resources that hospital leaders can use to address the operational factors within a hospital that contribute to burnout.
  • NIOSH developed the Impact Wellbeing Guide to help leaders start or reinvigorate their wellbeing work, no matter where they are in their journey.
  • The Guide helps hospital leaders accelerate their wellbeing work through six Actions, including creating a professional wellbeing team, encouraging regular two-way communication with their workforce, and integrating professional wellbeing into an existing quality improvement project. These practices help reduce burnout while optimizing patient outcomes and addressing costs associated with staff turnover and lost revenue.
  • The Guide builds on the work of many organizations who have made strides to address healthcare worker burnout. By compiling resources and expertise from a variety of healthcare organizations, the Guide provides the background and tools to support professional wellbeing in every hospital division.

The Impact Wellbeing campaign was developed from a robust formative research process, including:

• Background research on technological solutions and evidence-based interventions to address healthcare worker mental health.
• Collaborative briefing sessions with healthcare organizations, labor unions, researchers, and non-profit organizations to gather input on audience targets, overall landscape knowledge, and employer best practices.
• An environmental scan of existing communication campaigns and interventions that promote wellbeing among healthcare workers.
• In-depth interviews with healthcare workers and hospital leaders to understand knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs and test draft messages.
• Online bulletin boards with hospital leaders and healthcare workers to test creative concepts and assess communication preferences.

The Impact Wellbeing campaign materials equip hospital leaders with information, resources, and tools that guide them to improve their hospital operations in support of healthcare worker wellbeing. The campaign launched in 2023 and provides the following materials:

• The Impact Wellbeing Guide: Taking Action to Improve Healthcare Worker Wellbeing, a real-world tested resource to help hospital leaders implement systems-level changes, from revising existing processes to making it safe for staff to access mental health care.
• Tips and best practices for hospital leaders to effectively communicate with their staff about professional wellbeing efforts at their hospital.

• Resources for healthcare workers to:
  • Talk about mental health and burnout in the workplace.
  • Advocate for professional wellbeing in their workplace.

NIOSH will evaluate the Impact Wellbeing campaign’s performance and outcomes by conducting surveys with hospital leaders and healthcare workers and collecting data on campaign performance metrics.

NIOSH will continue to collect ongoing input from hospital leaders and healthcare workers to inform campaign resources moving forward.