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October 21, 2020

Wellness efforts at UAB Medicine surge with three simple questions

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word-cloudWhen asked, “What is one thing UAB Medicine can do to improve your well-being?” UAB Medicine employees provide tremendous feedback to help the UAB Medicine Office of Wellness direct initiatives to improve employee wellness. The word cloud to the right summarizes themes around all responses received by the office since June 2.

Responses are gathered through the Process Improvement Questions within the Well-Being Index (WBI), a tool offered by the UAB Medicine Office of Wellness that tracks personal wellness.

The Well-Being Index is a 7-9 question survey that determines wellness levels and presents immediate individualized feedback, while providing resources that match the person’s wellness state. It empowers individuals to address their own well-being by offering an overview of work and personal wellness levels. The assessment is backed with research conducted by the Mayo Clinic, and is a part of an ongoing effort at UAB Medicine to benchmark and increase wellness across all cohorts, from physicians and APPs to trainees and staff.

The assessment identifies individuals’ top three areas for growth and points them to local resources within the UAB enterprise, in Birmingham, or nationally. Plus, it tracks personal results over time. The tool also compares user results to peers in similar job roles at UAB Medicine and on a national level.

In an effort to understand the specific needs of UAB Medicine employees, the UAB Medicine Office of Wellness added process improvement questions to the end of the WBI assessment this summer. The WBI assessment is the same—still 7-9 questions—but now users are prompted at the end of their assessment to answer three questions about their work at UAB. These optional and anonymous questions are asked to all employees:

1. What is your greatest work (or school) related stressor?
2. What is your greatest stressor outside of work (or school)?
3. What is one thing UAB Medicine can do to improve your wellbeing?

So far, the anonymous feedback has been valuable and has provided great insight to wellness barriers. Moreover, the feedback helps the UAB Medicine Office of Wellness and other UAB Medicine leaders implement more holistic wellness strategies across UAB’s enterprise, and provide more helpful resources long-term.

Your feedback is important, and if you would like to answer these questions too, we encourage you to sign up for the WBI today using the appropriate code below. If you have already signed up, you will be offered an opportunity to answer these questions after a reassessment. Remember, users can reassess with the WBI at anytime.

Faculty: UAB FACULTY
APP: UAB APP
Trainee (Resident/Fellow/Other Trainee): UAB TRAINEE
Medical Students: UAB MEDICAL STUDENTS
Nurses: UAB NURSES
Employee/Staff: UAB MEDICINE

To learn more about the UAB Medicine Office of Wellness or to find wellness resources, visit: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/home/offices-services/wellness