Web-based Implementation for the Science of Enhancing Resilience Study — WISER  

Burnout, Professional Clinical Trial

Official title: Web-based Implementation for the Science of Enhancing Resilience Study

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

Resilience means a healthcare provider's ability to cope, recover, and learn from stressful events, as well as their access to resources that promote health and well-being. Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) health professionals' need to have particularly good resilience, because their work is extremely stressful and their patients, fragile preterm infants, require their undivided attention. The investigators propose a feasible and engaging intervention to enhance resilience among NICU health professionals promoting their ability to provide safe care.

Clinical Trial Description

Optimizing provider well-being is critical to the delivery of safe and high quality care to the most vulnerable of patients: very preterm babies.

Major innovative objectives of this proposal include testing the Web-based Implementation for the Science of Enhancing Resilience (WISER) program's effectiveness in enhancing resilience among Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) health workers, evaluating its effect on unit safety culture, and examining its effect on clinical outcomes in preterm infants. The WISER program is an established but low-intensity yet engaging intervention, which integrates education and behavior modification to boost provider well-being and resilience in order to create an organizational environment which prevents patient harm.

Care for the more than 50,000 very low birth weight (VLBW; < 1500 gm) infants born annually in the United States is challenging and expensive. Quality of care and outcomes vary widely. Increasing technical demands and patient acuity have pushed burnout among health workers to the breaking point. The few tested interventions that improve caregiver resilience lack feasibility for widespread adoption. This study is designed to achieve the following aims:

1. Test the effectiveness of WISER in improving NICU health professional resilience;

2. Test the effectiveness of WISER in improving patient safety and organizational outcomes;

3. Test the sustainability of WISER; and

4. Describe the barriers and facilitators of the WISER program.

The investigators will test the efficacy of the WISER Program in the NICU setting using a stepped-wedge mixed-methods randomized controlled trial (swRCT) at six tertiary care NICUs. The results of this trial will also provide insights into the causal relations between health worker resilience, the organizational environment, and clinical outcomes among infants born VLBW.

Two blocks with 3 NICUs each will be randomly assigned to one of two intervention cohorts. The WISER NICUs program consists of six 10-minute videos delivered over the course of a six-month period. Following the end of the initial intervention, each NICU will receive individualized feedback/refresher webinar at 12 months, and a final follow-up at 24 months. The investigators will use measures of perception (surveys of health professional's perceptions) and quantifiable measures (clinical measures) to assess the efficacy of the intervention in different domains (resilience, organizational environment, and health). Qualitative methods will provide further insights into facilitators and barriers of the efficacy of WISER. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Burnout, Professional
• Burnout, Psychological
• Resilience, Psychological

• NCT number: NCT02603133
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: Stanford University
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: July 2016
• Completion date: July 2019