Jonathan Ripp, MD, MPH
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has named Jonathan Ripp, MD, MPH, as Senior Associate Dean for Well-Being and Resilience, and Chief Wellness Officer. Dr. Ripp assumes the new post amid mounting challenges for medical professionals that include exhaustive clerical demands, increasingly burdensome documentation procedures, and numerous metric-driven requirements. Stressors such as these distract providers from the meaningful aspects of their jobs and make it harder for physicians to provide patients with the best possible care.
According to a December 2016 article in the Annals of Internal Medicine, physicians spent 27 percent of their total time on direct clinical face time with patients and 49.2 percent of their time filling out electronic health records and doing other administrative work. The study found they spent another 1 to 2 hours each night—after office hours—doing additional computer or clerical work.
“Our physicians and clinicians care for patients and families in need in an evolving health care system,” says Dr. Ripp. “They are driven in this pursuit to put the patient first, but often their own well-being suffers. We need to support their mission by improving the system-level factors that facilitate their purpose and provide them with the resources to promote well-being.”
Dr. Ripp has assumed a national leadership role in this endeavor. In April, he and colleagues from the Mayo Clinic and University of California San Francisco School of Medicine published a widely circulated “Charter on Physician Wellbeing” that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
David O. Barbe, MD, MHA, President of the American Medical Association (AMA), wrote, “Achieving national health goals depends on an energized, engaged, and resilient physician workforce. The AMA strongly supports the Charter and its declaration that the nation is best served by a health system that promotes professional fulfillment by allowing physicians to meet their patients’ needs for high-quality care.”
In his new role at Mount Sinai, Dr. Ripp will identify areas of excessive administrative and clinical burden that can be targets for intervention and workplace redesign efforts. He will also lead new initiatives that optimize physical and mental health.
“My role is to understand the local drivers of job burnout and to solve difficult problems,” he says. Initial initiatives will engage focus groups of faculty, students, and trainees and include gathering survey data on the drivers that erode well-being. He plans to identify a cohort of department-level faculty wellness champions who are eager to partner in implementing change.
Dr. Ripp—a faculty member in the Department of Medicine since 2004—has overseen the development of numerous wellness initiatives in Graduate Medical Education (GME) for the past two years. These include the expansion of mindfulness and reflection programs, codification of a policy that meets accreditation for well-being requirements, and the establishment of a GME-funded well-being grant program to decrease trainee work intensity and administrative burden. In addition to this work, he provides primary care to homebound New Yorkers through the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program.
As Dr. Ripp pursues new programs within the Icahn School of Medicine and the Mount Sinai Health System, he also will continue his work on a national level. Over the course of their careers, physicians can expect to encounter patients who are dealing with extreme pain and suffering. Incorporating resilience-building strategies into medical training and education can provide physicians with the emotional awareness and support they need during these stressful encounters.
The development of clinician well-being initiatives will take a large effort, says Dr. Ripp, but the rewards for the nation’s doctors and patients are potentially huge.