Background: Bendigo Health is a regional hub for cancer services in the Loddon Mallee Region, Victoria. The Cancer Centre employs 130 staff and sees over 1000 new cancer patients annually. During COVID-19 pandemic the strong link between people’s wellbeing and their capacity provide quality work well became acutely clear. The ‘My well-being program’ developed by the Mayo Clinic as a web based assessment tool was rolled out in July 2024 at the Cancer Centre to systemically assess staff wellbeing across all craft groups.
Aim: To introduce the “My well-being” index program into the Bendigo Cancer Centre to evaluate the staff’s wellbeing, identify work-related factors impacting wellbeing, and support meaningful organizational change.
Methods: The program was introduced through the existing leadership group, with training for all leads. The My well-being program developed by the Mayo Clinic was launched Centre-wide, and staff were onboarded. Results were shared between the leadership group (for accountability), and explored by each craft group at their respective operational meetings to enable deeper team discussions, focusing on potential solutions when issues were identified.
Results: Over the 10 months period, early observations show good engagement with 133 staff participating. The greatest levels of distress found in staff that have direct patient contact, and high clinical responsibly. On the whole healthy proportion of staff doing ok or thriving. The program revealed new challenges affecting staff wellbeing. Many issues were identified that would not have been discovered in the previous operational structure. It fostered open dialogue about the emotional and psychological impacts of the work, prompting open and constructive discussions about improvement. The process has been embedded into regular review and operational routines.
Conclusion: This is an easy program to use for time poor clinicians, however it requires a systematized approach, proactive champions’ and staff need to see meaningful improvements.