Effectively utilizing wellness and engagement surveys

Wellness and engagement in busy and complex healthcare systems are challenging. Much has been written about how individual healthcare workers can prevent their own burnout and improve wellness as well as the role of institutional and organizational goals to promote engagement and wellness. However, while there is clearly not one explanation or one solution for this problem, there is also not one standard approach to assessing these important issues, though surveys are most commonly used to assess the characteristics of the workplace. We suggest a framework of strategies for effective use of surveys to improve employee wellness and engagement based on practical experience that involve operational next steps organizations and programs can take after surveys as well as contextualizing the information they provide. These steps include adapting and leveraging quality improvement (QI) tools customarily used for patient safety for the purpose of wellness and engagement.