This post was submitted by: Alicia Clark, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Duke General Internal Medicine.
Over 600 people from across Duke Health came together this week for the annual Patient Safety and Quality Conference at the Durham Convention Center. There was representation from all three hospitals (DUH, DRH, DRAH), Graduate Medical Education, Duke Primary Care, Duke Lifepoint, Duke HomeCare and Hospice, PDC and Patient Advisory Volunteers. With Dr. Jon Bae at the helm as master of ceremonies, the day was destined for success.
The morning began with a welcome from Dr. Tom Owens and Dr. William Fulkerson giving thanks for the amazing contributions and teamwork being showcased at the conference. The plenary speaker was Dr. Tait Shanafelt, Director for the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Program on Well-being. While he spent some time describing the current data on burnout and distress among all types of health care providers, he really focused on concrete opportunities for teams, institutions and individuals to promote the wellbeing of every team member and re-invigorate the passion that lead us into healthcare.
Following his talk, the poster session gave us all an opportunity to mingle, snack and marvel at the impressive array of quality improvement work being done. The Hospital Medicine group showcased fabulous interdisciplinary work across Duke health system and Duke Primary Care.
Dr Jon Bae brought us back for a panel presentation of Duke Leaders sharing their perspective on burnout and best practices occurring locally to promote healthy teams. Dr. Cathy Kuhn, Kevin Sowers, Rhonda Brandon and Vicky Orto had a very candid conversation with the large group about their own experiences with being “crispy” and how they found the support and resources they needed. The audience shared challenges as well as local successes in combating burnout. The morning concluded with an entertaining talk from Brian Sexton about how humans are genetically wired for burnout but can be re-wired to see the positive using simple strategic tools like “1 good chat”.
The afternoon was filled with breakout sessions and an innovative way to learn more about the winning posters projects called “Walking the Poster Gallery Wall”. Our own Dr. Lawrence Greenblatt led a breakout session on the opioid epidemic, sharing local resources and strategies. Dr. John Paat led a session on the transformation to the Primary Care Medical Home Model with a focus on improving quality and the patient experience. Peyton Grissom, RN, and I shared our work in improving communication between MDs and RNs through standardized paging and interdisciplinary quality efforts.
Overall, the conference gave us all an opportunity to learn more about amazing quality improvement work taking place all around us, break down traditional work silo’s, expand the concept of team and re-enforce the importance of finding joy in our everyday work lives. All in all, it was a fabulous success.
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For more on the event, see the story on the DukeHealth page here.