Charting a New Path Forward in Addressing Employee Well-being in Health Care

Abstract

Health care worker well-being is critical to delivering optimal care to our patients. With greater understanding of these issues, evidence-informed models of employee well-being have been developed to guide efforts to improve well-being in the workplace. To ensure that organizational approaches resonate with staff needs, these models can be improved for local application by engaging employees in a co-creation process in which they actively participate in developing and refining the institutional framework for employee well-being. This article describes how the Mayo Clinic Employee Well-Being team, led by Mayo Clinic’s first organization-level medical director and administrator of Employee Well-Being, integrated employee input with existing well-being models through a comprehensive process to define a program structure reflecting the most important staff needs. The novel features of this approach are intended to serve as a guide for health care organizations as we work together to promote learning and working environments in medicine in which every member of the health care team can thrive.