Campaign Insights

Introduction

NIOSH is the federal research institute focused on the study of worker safety and health. To help hospital leaders improve and sustain healthcare worker wellbeing, NIOSH developed the Impact Wellbeing campaign. This campaign is focused on primary prevention in hospital settings — intervening before poor mental health outcomes occur.

Healthcare workers in hospitals historically experience high levels of burnout and risk for poor wellbeing, and the pandemic exacerbated these issues. Hospital leaders are well-positioned to implement needed operational and cultural changes. They are also able to reach a large population of healthcare workers across all levels, departments, and job titles.

Using insights to define strategic direction

To inform campaign development, NIOSH explored healthcare workers' and leaders' attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, experiences, and needs around professional wellbeing. These findings led NIOSH to tailor the Impact Wellbeing campaign to equip hospital leaders with tools and resources to help reduce healthcare worker burnout.

A phased approach

Campaign development efforts were split into two phases so that findings from each activity could inform the next.1

Phase 1: Defining Campaign Audiences, Priorities, and Needs

NIOSH held two collaborative briefing sessions to gather input on audience targets, overall landscape knowledge, and employer best practices. Using NIOSH's tripartite approach, participants came from government, industry, and labor.

NIOSH also conducted an environmental scan of 19 communication campaigns that promote wellbeing among healthcare workers. We reviewed their existing resources and interventions.

Phase 2: Understanding Campaign Audiences

NIOSH held 56 in-depth interviews with healthcare workers and hospital leaders. These aimed to better understand knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs around professional wellbeing and test campaign messages.

NIOSH also conducted two rounds of online bulletin boards with over 120 healthcare workers and hospital leaders. These tested campaign creative concepts and messages and communications preferences.

Overall key findings and insights

• Existing efforts to reduce healthcare worker burnout often placed responsibility on the healthcare worker to take action.
• Healthcare workers do not want efforts to focus on individual resilience. Instead, they need hospital leaders to address the systemic factors at the root of staff burnout (e.g., adequate staffing, demanding work schedules, excess administrative work, etc.).
• Both audiences want to feel understood by one another. They also agree that improving healthcare worker wellbeing requires a hospital-specific and leadership-led approach.
• Hospital leaders need actionable guidance on how they can address wellbeing at their own hospital.

Putting insights into practice

With these findings, NIOSH developed the Impact Wellbeing campaign to support hospital leaders in making operational improvements within their hospitals. It also supports them in communicating with their healthcare workers about these efforts. The campaign offers resources for hospital leaders and healthcare workers, including:

• The Impact Wellbeing Guide, an actionable, real-world tested tool designed to help hospital leaders implement systems-level changes to improve professional wellbeing for healthcare workers.
• Tips and best practices for hospital leaders to effectively communicate with their staff about professional wellbeing.
• Resources for healthcare workers to talk about mental health and burnout in the workplace, and advocate for use of the Guide in their organization.

About

Impact Wellbeing was developed by NIOSH in collaboration with the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation to support hospital leaders, and in turn their healthcare workforce, to improve professional wellbeing.