Almost 100 of our clinically active faculty responded to the 2018 UW Medicine Patients Are First Clinician Survey, a 26% increase in response rate over 2017. Press Ganey, the nation’s largest health care survey vendor, conducted the survey providing local and national benchmark data from other clinical departments at UW and from national academic medical centers. Key goals of the survey included a better understanding of our faculty’s ‘Engagement Indicator,’ a composite metric that includes providers’ degree of pride in our organization, their intent to stay, the overall satisfaction that providers feel towards our organization, and their willingness to recommend UW Medicine to friends and family seeking care. Another important metric included an ‘Alignment Indicator’ which attempts to measure the extent to which our faculty providers feel a strong partnership and connection with leadership and a shared vision of how to execute our organizational mission. UW Medicine summarized our faculty survey responses in the context of three benchmarks: responses from other clinical departments at UW Medicine, responses from all physicians nationally, and responses from 78 national academic medical centers.

On average, our department faculty’s responses were above local, national, and academic averages for both the ‘Engagement Indicator’ and the ‘Alignment Indicator,’ placing us in the 65th percentile and 89th percentile respectively among national academic medical centers. More than 85% of respondents report they are “satisfied with working at their primary clinical location” with only 3% giving an unfavorable response to this question. More than 90% reported being satisfied with the level of collegiality among providers. A total of 97% report that they see their work as ‘meaningful,’ substantially more than respondents from national or academic physician surveys elsewhere. A total of 87% of respondents reported that “UW Medicine values employees from different backgrounds.” Our faculty also reported that they enjoy working with peers, engaging in effective teamwork, and providing high-quality, ethical care to their patients. Faculty who work in hospital-based settings reported slightly higher satisfaction than those who work exclusively in clinic / outpatient settings. Clinicians who have been practicing medicine for 5-10 years had the highest engagement and alignment scores. Satisfaction scores were similar across all academic ranks from assistant professor to professor.

This year’s survey also identified a number of areas for improvement, including some areas in which our faculty satisfaction scores were below other specialties or national averages. These include challenges with scheduling care for patients, the availability of inpatient beds, the burden related to our Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, and frustration related to not having the tools and resources needed to provide the best patient care at all times. Finally, a substantial number of faculty across all programs (local and national) identify challenges related to work-life balance. For example, nearly one third of respondents reported challenges with “freeing my mind from work when I am away from it” or “enjoying my personal time without focusing on work matters.”

Over the next few months, we will work with service chiefs at our major clinical sites to delve into some of the details of this survey and to identify local and department-wide opportunities to improve the work we do together. The UW Medicine Physician Engagement Team, Co-Chaired by Heidi Combs, MD, and James Park, MD, is working on several areas to support our physician leaders as they address the opportunities highlighted in the survey reports. If you have any feedback on the report or how to promote physician engagement across our health system, please reach out to Dr. Combs.