A Survey Based Organizational Approach to Improving Veterinarian Wellbeing

Presentation Description / Summary: We created a unique Doctor Wellbeing Survey intended to gain insights to develop initiatives in three key areas of wellbeing: Workplace, Personal & Professional, and Financial Wellbeing. A modified version of the Physician Wellness Inventory, a survey leveraged in human healthcare, was also included, resulting in 37 total items. All items were rated on a 5-point agreement scale (1-strongly disagree, 5-strongly agree) and participants had the option to add a comment after each section of the survey. The survey was delivered in 2020 (n=278, 62% response rate) and again in 2022(n=266, 46% response rate) to evaluate the effectiveness of wellbeing initiatives taken. Analyses of mean comparisons from 2020 to 2022 were conducted through independent samples t-tests. Results showed significant increases in 14 items, most notably in the areas of Workplace and Personal & Professional Wellbeing. There were significant decreases in 3 items, particularly in response to the impact of educational debt on wellbeing. Finally, comparisons of Specialty and ER Department doctors were conducted and showed significant differences with lower scores of ER doctor wellbeing on 11 questions. ER doctors scored significantly lower in medical record efficiency, workflow efficiency, feelings of job satisfaction, and overall feelings of pleasure outside of the workplace. This study demonstrates that an organizational, systematic approach based on doctor input can have a positive overall influence of doctor wellbeing.

Learner Outcomes: 1. Understand the metholodogy and logistics of an organizational approach to improve doctor wellbeing 2. Learn root causes that affect doctor wellbeing 3. Learn how a systematic approach based on doctor input can have a positive overall influence of doctor wellbeing.