Northwestern Medicine Prioritizes Clinician Well-being with Tech & peer Support
Northwestern Medicine has been recognized for its commitment to physician well-being, earning consecutive american Medical Association Joy in Medicine Gold awards. The program’s success stems from a focus on reducing “system-level drivers of work-related burnout.”
A key component of northwestern’s strategy involves leveraging technology. The system has rolled out ambient AI to attending physicians and advanced practice providers utilizing the Electronic Health Record (EHR) for patient notes. This AI technology listens to patient visits and automatically generates documentation in a format tailored to each specialty, significantly reducing after-hours workload. according to Dr. Agarwal, this allows physicians to avoid working evenings and weekends, and even enables them to see more patients, addressing access-to-care challenges.
Northwestern has also addressed on-call burdens through a dedicated after-hours nurse triage initiative within its primary care network. Previously, patients contacting the call center often requested to speak directly with a physician, resulting in frequent interruptions for on-call doctors covering multiple physicians’ patient panels. The new triage system, staffed by nurses, now resolves approximately 80%-90% of incoming calls without requiring physician intervention. This resulted in a dramatic 94% reduction in urgent calls needing a physician’s attention, dropping from around 150 to just 15.
Northwestern Medicine tracks the impact of its well-being initiatives across four key pillars: well-being metrics (including burnout and PTO usage), accreditation and recognition (like the AMA awards), advancing the science through research and presentations, and reach - expanding programs to encompass over 22,000 employees system-wide.
Dr. Agarwal highlighted the Scholars of Wellness program, which he created, as a especially impactful initiative.This program trains clinicians to become well-being leaders within their respective departments. The program’s design emphasizes peer-to-peer support, recognizing that a surgeon is more likely to be receptive to well-being strategies suggested by a fellow surgeon. Currently, approximately 160 individuals – including attending physicians, advanced practice providers, and recently, pharmacists – are trained as Scholars of Wellness across the Northwestern system.
