Employee Well-Being diagram

About the Program

The Mayo Clinic Program on Physician Well-Being evaluates the entire spectrum of personal, professional and organizational factors influencing physician well-being, satisfaction and productivity, including:

    • Healthy work environment
    • Employees feel physically and psychologically safe at work. Workload challenges are addressed, and employees understand support resources available to help them thrive.
    • Personal enrichment
    • Employees connect with Mayo Clinic's mission and can grow in their careers while being supported in their emotional, financial, physical and mental health. Employees experience joy at work in a setting of personal and organizational resilience.
    • Community at work
    • Employees experience a sense of belonging fostered by relationships among colleagues, multidisciplinary teams and diverse work unit structures through a culture of inclusion and trust.
    • Being valued
    • Employees are respected, appreciated and valued through equitable compensation and benefits, recognition, and access to professional development. They feel heard and empowered.
    • Meaningful work
    • Employees find purpose and fulfillment in their work that aligns with their skills, strengths and values.

The program also researches optimal organizational approaches to prevent physician stress and create a positive-energy workplace.

The program's leadership team and faculty and staff work together to advance discovery and transform practice, improving physicians' work lives and, in turn, the care they provide to patients worldwide.

Why establish a program on physician and scientist well-being at Mayo Clinic?

The creation of the Program on Physician Well-Being emphasizes the important role staff have in the Mayo Clinic mission.

The daily work of physicians and scientists is critical to patient outcomes and cost of care. The healthcare system in the U.S. is rapidly changing. As the program moves toward aspirational goals of better care, improved health and lower cost, we need to ensure that all healthcare professionals are fully engaged.

The cost of physician burnout conservatively adds more than $4.6 billion annually to the U.S. healthcare system ($7,600 per physician). Across Mayo Clinic alone, it is estimated to cost at least $38 million a year in decreased productivity.

The program facilitates evidence-based approaches to inform departmental and organizational well-being initiatives.

What types of research does the program focus on?

Our research focuses on understanding the prevalence, causes and consequences of physician burnout and other aspects of distress across the career span and on developing scalable, affordable and evidence-based approaches to inform individual, team, leader and Mayo Clinic well-being initiatives to promote learning and working environments where healthcare professionals can thrive.

Although the group conducts research on medical students, residents and medical professionals across a variety of disciplines, its primary focus has been on studying well-being among physicians. In addition, the group prospectively and longitudinally measures different dimensions of well-being, professional satisfaction and burnout among physicians to identify changes and trends within Mayo Clinic.

Data are used to evaluate how changes in organizational structure impact the satisfaction and well-being of physicians.

How does the program translate new knowledge into changes for physicians and scientists?

One of our primary goals is to develop evidence-based approaches to inform departmental and organizational well-being initiatives.

The program has developed new metrics, established national benchmarks and implemented practice analytics focused on physician well-being. The group also conducted intervention studies and randomized trials that resulted in the implementation of several organizational strategies aimed at improving physician well-being through action at each level within the Mayo Clinic Employee Well-Being framework.

These strategies include:

  • Making physician well-being a routine organizational performance metric with targeted interventions.
  • Monitoring the physician leadership score with tailored coaching for those in need and establishing a centralized coaching offering that provides personal and professional coaching.
  • Cultivating community through COMPASS groups, also known as physician engagement groups.
  • Incorporating discussions of career fit into annual reviews.
  • Providing a validated self-calibration tool with links to resources to promote self-care.