Increasing access to mental health supports for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond through a novel coaching program

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to heightened anxiety, distress, and burnout among healthcare workers and faculty in academic medicine. Penn Medicine launched Coping First Aid (CFA) in March 2020 in response to the pandemic. Informed by Psychological First Aid principles and therapeutic micro skills, CFA was designed as a tele-mental healthcare service for health system employees and their families delivered by trained lay volunteer coaches under the supervision of licensed mental health clinicians. We present an overview of the model, feasibility and utilization data, and preliminary implementation and effectiveness outcomes based on cross sectional coach (n = 22) and client (n = 57) self-report surveys with a subset of program users in the first year. A total of 44 individuals completed training and were certified to coach. Over the first 24 months of the program, 513 sessions occurred with 273 clients (119 sessions were no-shows or canceled). Follow-up appointments were recommended in 52.6% (n = 270) of sessions and 21.2% (n = 109) of clients were referred for professional mental health care. Client survey respondents reported CFA was helpful; 60% were very or extremely satisfied, and 74% indicated they would recommend the program. Our preliminary findings suggest that CFA was feasible to implement and most clients found the service beneficial. CFA provides a model for rapidly developing and scaling mental health supports during and beyond the pandemic.

Implementing a resilience coach program to support first year housestaff during the COVID-19 pandemic: early pilot results and comparison with non-housestaff sessions

“…Although we are unable to gauge the program’s effectiveness, the data described in this study informed ongoing resilience coach training and better equipped coaches to support subsequent cohorts of residents. In line with guidelines described elsewhere [ 16 ], we recommend that other organizations who seek to develop initiatives like CFA take a similar approach of iterative testing and refinement to best support healthcare workers during COVID-19 and beyond.…”

“…Preliminary results show that those who engaged with the CFA program were highly satisfied and found the services they received beneficial [ 16 ]. In the current study, we describe session data from the cohort of housestaff who entered residency or fellowship in June 2020.…”

An Assessment of Faculty Perceptions of Wellness Needs and Strategies to Optimize Engagement With Wellness Resources in Academic Medicine

“…We conducted qualitative interviews with faculty at an academic medical center to: (1) assess faculty needs regarding key domains of well-being and the potential role of lay health coaches in addressing these needs, (2) identify ways in which wellness program’s dissemination strategies can be tailored to optimize the resulting rate of use, and (3) understand how the perceptions of wellness program users may generalize to other settings to better support academic health system employees. A short-term goal of this work is to inform refinement and dissemination of wellness resources more generally and of a lay health worker coaching program at the institution from where participants were recruited 29,30 . Long-term goals include informing how best to address faculty and HCW burnout and optimize precision in matching individuals to appropriate levels of care.…”

“…A short-term goal of this work is to inform refinement and dissemination of wellness resources more generally and of a lay health worker coaching program at the institution from where participants were recruited. 29,30 Long-term goals include informing how best to address faculty and HCW burnout and optimize precision in matching individuals to appropriate levels of care.…”