University of Colorado, Denver

Smartwatch and Physician Well-Being: Are Wearables Part of the Solution?

The University of Colorado School of Medicine, founded in 1883, is a diverse teaching and learning community that creates, discovers, and applies knowledge to improve the health and well-being of Colorado and the world. The school is located on the Anschutz Medical campus along with the dental, public health, nursing, and pharmacy schools. The school’s major teaching affiliates are the University of Colorado Hospital, Children’s Hospital Colorado, Denver Health (a safety net hospital), and the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center.

A randomized controlled trial to evaluate if wearing a Smartwatch improves overall well-being among physicians will be conducted, and if so, the dimensions of well-being (e.g., fatigue, stress, overall quality of life, burnout) will be closely examined. Additionally, the trial will explore if biometric data from smartwatches can predict subsequent well-being among physicians. Drs. Dyrbye (Univ of Colorado), West (Mayo Clinic), and Shanafelt (Stanford) are international thought leaders on physician burnout, engagement, and career satisfaction and have conducted rigorous intervention studies to advance the work-lives of physicians, including 2 successful randomized controlled trials of professional coaching funded by The Physicians Foundation. Dr. Athreya (Mayo Clinic) has expertise in computer engineering, handling real-time continuous measures, and predictive modeling and has a track record of bringing novel analytical technologies developed in research to practice. Drs. Dyrbye and Athreya are actively collaborating on studies leveraging smartwatch data.