Pegasus Health Pastoral Care Programme.

Area of Science:

• Medical Workforce
• Physician Health
• Patient Safety

Background:

• General practitioners (GPs) in New Zealand face significant retirement intentions by 2025, exacerbating workforce shortages.
• Increased stressors place doctors at risk of burnout, potentially compromising patient safety and organizational stability.
• A proactive approach to physician wellness is crucial for patient safety and organizational resilience.

Purpose of the Study:

• To transition from a reactive system for impaired doctors to a proactive performance monitoring system.
• To identify and address issues related to physician stress and burnout early.
• To implement a supportive initiative for general practitioners experiencing difficulties.

Main Methods:

• Reporting on a pastoral care program initiative by Pegasus Health Charitable for GPs in Canterbury.
• Focusing on GPs experiencing increased stress, burnout, or performance impairment.
• Describing a 9-year successful program involving individualized and confidential support.

Main Results:

• The pastoral care program has been operational for 9 years with sustained success.
• The program has provided support to 32 general practitioners.
• The need for individualized and confidential approaches due to low participant numbers was highlighted.

Conclusions:

• Pegasus Health has adopted a systematic approach to monitoring and supporting health practitioners.
• The initiative involves monitoring data on GPs at risk, including psychological health indicators.
• Data collection is utilized to manage the psychological well-being of doctors through various metrics.