When Attila Nemeth, MD, FHM, Assistant Chief of Medicine for Faculty Development at the VA Northeast Ohio Health Care System, was chosen as an American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Visiting Scholar for the Class of 2023-2024, he had big plans for his research.
Not only did Dr. Nemeth want to create a new activity module on physician wellness through the ABMS Visiting Scholars Program™, but he also wanted to offer it as a quality improvement (QI) project through the ABMS Portfolio Program™. After speaking with ABMS leaders, Dr. Nemeth was thrilled to learn that he could do both.
Having never developed an assessment tool, Dr. Nemeth attended the Harvard Macy Institute’s six-day program entitled A Systems Approach to Assessment in Health Professions Education. To provide guidance for the physicians participating in the QI activity module, he also earned an executive certificate in Emotional Intelligent Leadership and Change Management from the Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management.
The aim of the four-part module is to first provide physicians who are experiencing burnout with a tool to undergo self-reflection to identify the source of the burnout. The second step is to work with a mentor(s) to determine how to address the burnout.
“My goal was to develop a tool that enables physicians to address burnout, which has been shown to adversely affect patient care, physician health, and the health care system,” Dr. Nemeth said. Regarding patients, studies have shown that physician burnout is associated with lower quality of care, resulting in more medical errors, longer recovery times, and lower patient satisfaction. Physicians experience increased substance use, increased depression and suicidal ideation, poor self-care, and an uptick in motor vehicle accidents. At the health care system level, there is reduced physician productivity, increased physician turnover, less patient access, and increased costs.
Participating physicians are strongly encouraged to tie their plan-do-study-act cycle of intervention(s) with patient care interventions, potential cost-saving interventions, or health system priorities. “Doing so, will help generate leadership buy-in and institutional support,” he said.
Dr. Nemeth recently started recruiting physicians to participate in the QI module. Participation is not exclusive to VA physicians; any diplomate board certified by an ABMS Member Board is eligible to participate in the QI module and earn continuing certification credit. Individuals interested in participating in the QI activity should contact Portfolio Program staff.
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