Colorado Medical Society

http://dev.cms.org/articles/cms-launches-physician-wellness-toolkit/

CMS launches physician wellness toolkit

Friday, September 26, 2014 07:54 AM

The Colorado Medical Society and its Expert Panel on Physician Wellness have spent the last year tackling the goal of improving physician wellness and reducing burnout in recognition that healthy doctors live longer, lead more satisfying lives and are safer practitioners. A crucial partner in the effort are the experts at the Behavioral Health and Wellness Program (BHWP) at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, who developed a toolkit specifically tailored to physicians to address the eight dimensions of wellness with a focus on stress and burnout.

Chad Morris, PhD, BHWP program director, and Cindy Morris, PsyD, BHWP clinical director, presented the toolkit at the annual meeting. Physician burnout is a response to facing significant job stressors over a long period of time, they said. Individuals feel cynical or depersonalized, experience prolonged emotional exhaustion, or find it difficult to perform well and feel accomplished at work and home. Among various professions in the United States, physicians experience the highest and most significant levels of burnout. And, notably, among physicians with the lowest levels of well-being, most believed their well-being was at or above average levels.

“DIMENSIONS: Work and Well-Being Toolkit for Physicians” is designed specifically for physicians and contains education regarding the importance of maintaining overall wellness, step-by-step instructions for developing skills to assess one’s overall wellness and identify goals to further promote wellness, a low-burden means of assessing readiness to change related to increasing wellness behaviors, and evidence-based strategies for improving wellness.

Click here to download the toolkit.