20-Aug-2024

Young nurse wearing scrubs, holding an iPad and smiling

A partnership promoting mental health for healthcare workers

Day in and day out, healthcare workers navigate the complexities of demanding schedules, long hours and challenging situations, putting a strain on their mental health and wellbeing. The COVID-19 pandemic shined a light on the staggering rates of healthcare worker burnout, yet the crisis had been surging for years.¹ That’s why Stryker is partnering with the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation, an organisation on the frontline of change.

Why it’s important

As the Foundation states, “The healthcare workforce is one of the most resilient groups of people around. However, when we define the prerequisite condition of a job as heroism on a daily basis, we are setting up an entire workforce to fall short of that expectation.” At Stryker, we believe thriving healthcare professionals are the foundation of a healthy healthcare ecosystem, which is why we’re growing our signature partnership with the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation to help prevent healthcare worker burnout.

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The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation works to protect health workers’ mental health and wellbeing

The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation is named in honour of Dr. Lorna Breen, the Accident & Emergency (A&E) director at New York Presbyterian Hospital who died by suicide on 26 April 2020. After three weeks of treating COVID-19 patients and contracting the virus herself, she returned to the A&E at the height of the pandemic. As Dr. Breen’s mental health suffered, she worried getting help would end the career she had spent her entire life working for. Eventually, the pressure became too much.

As the Foundation states, “The healthcare workforce is one of the most resilient groups of people around. However, when we define the prerequisite condition of a job as heroism on a daily basis, we are setting up an entire workforce to fall short of that expectation.” At Stryker, we believe thriving healthcare professionals are the foundation of a healthy healthcare ecosystem, which is why we’re partnering with the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation to help support healthcare workers’ mental health and wellbeing, improve access to mental health resources and help prevent suicide.

“The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation is proud to be a Signature Partner of Stryker to accelerate solutions and advocate for policies that put our healthcare workforce’s wellbeing first,” said Corey Feist, Co-Founder of the Foundation. “Over the next year, we look forward to growing our partnership with Stryker to help support all 15 million U.S. health workers caring for the health of our entire country. Together, we can address this mental health crisis our health workers are experiencing and make a lasting impact on our healthcare workforce’s wellbeing.”

Together, we’re working to support the safety and wellbeing of healthcare worker and improve access to mental health care

The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation’s mission is to reduce burnout of healthcare professionals and safeguard their wellbeing and job satisfaction. This goal aligns with Stryker’s Heart of Safety Coalition, a community that is committed to safeguarding psychological and emotional safety, promoting health justice and ensuring physical safety of healthcare workers. The Coalition helped bring the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation and Stryker together. “Seeking mental health care is too often considered a sign of weakness amongst medical professionals,” said Anita Mehta, Director, Social Impact for Stryker. “Alongside the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation, we’re determined to end the stigma around seeking mental health support. Our goal is to bring meaningful change and help ensure the wellbeing of every person working in healthcare.”

Initiatives Stryker and the Foundation are driving forward

Working alongside the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation to care for those who care for us gives us hope that our healthcare system will be strong in the years to come. Together, we’ve made progress in addressing the operational practices and processes driving health worker burnout, while improving access to mental health care for health workers who may need support throughout their career. Key initiatives our partnership supports include:

Female nurse putting on gloves in an operating room

The Foundation advises the healthcare industry on implementing wellbeing initiatives and programmes and works to reduce stigma around seeking mental healthcare.

All In: Caring for Caregivers is the Foundation’s primary programme, where organisations go through three phases of change to improve workplace policies and practices that reduce burnout, normalise help-seeking and strengthen professional wellbeing. First launched in Virginia in 2022, 75% of hospitals in the state improved their credentialing policies to remove intrusive mental health questions on applications and peer review forms, and 12 health systems are actively engaging to accelerate a quality improvement project that recognises professional wellbeing as a key outcome.

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Female doctor in a white lab coat filling out credentialing paperwork

Separately, the Foundation leads the Wellbeing First Champion Challenge on behalf of the ALL IN: Wellbeing First for Healthcare coalition to address one of the most substantial barriers to mental health care for clinicians – removing overly invasive and stigmatising questions on licensing and credentialing applications about prior mental health diagnosis and treatment.

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Healthcare professionals walking together: Cover of the Impact Wellbeing Guide

Additionally, through their partnership with CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the Foundation launched the Impact Wellbeing™ campaign. As part of the campaign, the Foundation co-developed the Impact Wellbeing Guide: Taking Action to Improve Healthcare Worker Wellbeing. “In the first four weeks of the guide’s release, which was on the inaugural Health Workforce Well-Being Day on 18 March 2024, nearly 14,000 hospital leaders accessed and began to use the guide to make systems-level changes and build trust between leaders and health workers,” added Corey Feist.

According to the Foundation’s website, “Clinicians who are empowered to seek mental health care and counselling without fear of professional stigmatisation experience increased psychological safety in their organisations and are empowered to care for themselves – a critical action for patient safety.” True, meaningful change is hard work. It takes commitment and collaboration. And alongside partners like the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation, we’re inspiring transformation to help healthcare team members feel supported, protected and safe.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available.
Call or text 988, chat 988lifeline.org or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.