Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University

Development and Evaluation of an Opinion Leader Based Intervention to Create a Culture of Wellness

This program development and evaluation project aims to train physicians identified by peers as Opinion Leaders (well-liked and influential physicians). These Opinion Leaders will then drive engagement in activities designed to create an organizational culture of wellness (e.g. appreciation, values alignment, and peer support) in which physicians extend to themselves and their colleagues the same natural compassion that they show to their patients.

The program will first be developed and tested in an outpatient clinic network where physician response rates have been ≥ 97% for the last three years on an annual physician wellness survey. The survey assesses physician professional fulfillment, burnout, and variables that drive professional fulfillment versus burnout. Current physician wellness efforts in this clinic network focus on efficiency of practice and personal resilience factors. An approach to improve culture of wellness has not yet been implemented.  Investigators will use survey inquiry to identify Opinion Leaders among the physician faculty at each outpatient clinic group and will train these Opinion Leaders to facilitate delivery of intervention components.

The primary research aim of this study is to determine the effects on professional fulfillment of the intervention, using an experimental design that randomizes clinic groups to intervention or delayed intervention control. The secondary aim is to determine the degree to which changes in professional fulfillment are associated with intervention effects on organizational culture of wellness variables. The annual survey includes screening tools for anxiety, depression, sleep-related impairment, and burnout.