World renowned teaching and academic institution Brigham and Women’s Hospital announced this week that it would be piloting a new mental health and wellness program for providers in conjunction with its Department of Emergency Medicine. This program will be supported by the healthcare technology startup, Rose. The tool allows for “daily mood tracking and standardized assessments,” and provides an opportunity for users to “journal in-app.” These entries are then analyzed by the software “through Natural Language Processing, or NPS, and displays the entry sentiment (e.g., depression, anxiety, trauma)” to be reviewed for further evaluation.

Dr. John Shivdat, who is listed as a part of Rose’s advisory board and is Chairman and Medical Director of the HCA Coliseum Health System, made a statement, as mentioned in HealthcareITNews, explaining the purpose of the new digital tool: “Rather than fragmented tools and programs aiming to ‘treat burnout,’ we need to better identify and tackle system-wide factors that lead to burnout, while promoting a healthy workplace for our healthcare workers […] Rose is tailor-made to address this challenge – proactively identifying individuals who are at greater risk of burnout and customizing interventions and content to their unique needs, while providing mental health professionals with the data and insights necessary to deliver personalized content more efficiently and effectively.”

This initiative is a part of a growing trend in medicine, as healthcare and policy leaders are recognizing increasing levels of physician burnout and well-being issues. Especially with the massive stress that the coronavirus pandemic has brought upon healthcare workers, more work is being done to provide additional support tools to those on the front-lines. In July, The University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine and UNC Health announced the launch of the “Heroes Health” mental wellness app, which “delivers short mental health self-assessments each week and displays symptom summary reports to help [healthcare workers] better understand the state of their own mental health and changes over time.”

The UNC initiative was pioneered by Dr. Samuel McLean, an emergency medicine physician at the front-lines of the fight against Covid-19. McLean very succinctly states the purpose of these initiatives: “First responders and health care workers are facing a lot of challenges right now…There is the personal risk of severe illness or death. Much worse, there is the anxiety and fear of infecting loved ones. This an even greater challenge for first responders or health workers who live with someone particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. It’s important to give first responders and health care workers a simple, quick way to regularly check in on their mental health and immediately find resources. It is also important to provide organizations with tools that help empower them to care for each other.”

Indeed, although it is promising to see efforts focused on the well-being of healthcare workers, more funding, research, and time is needed to figure out exactly what the most effective approach will be. One thing is certain: as the healthcare industry has been grappling with increasing rates of burnout and vast numbers of physicians leaving the practice of medicine due to a variety of systemic difficulties over the past decade, these initiatives need to be unequivocally prioritized by policy leaders.

The content of this article is not implied to be and should not be relied on or substituted for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment by any means, and is not written or intended as such. This content is for information and news purposes only. Consult with a trained medical professional for medical advice.