Marietta, Ga.-based Wellstar Health System is advancing a precision well-being framework that shifts clinician burnout efforts upstream, focusing on operational drivers of stress and individualized interventions rather than traditional wellness programs, Ryan Breshears, MD, chief behavioral health officer and chief well-being officer, told Becker’s.
“What we’ve tried to do is retire these one-and-done interventions,” he said. “You can give a clinician a great experience, do a camaraderie dinner, but the next day, they walk right back into the same set of conditions that was driving their stress, and the benefits of that previous dinner erode very quickly.”
The system reported sustained improvements tied to the approach. Physician distress has declined by more than 40% since 2021. Physician well-being is now 32% above the national average, with a 2025 high distress rate of 24.47% compared to 36.1% nationally. Among advanced practice providers, burnout rates are statistically significantly lower than national benchmarks, while nursing burnout is tracking 8% below the national average.
Each July, clinicians complete a standardized well-being assessment that gives leaders a systemwide view of clinician well-being. For higher-risk clinicians identified through annual assessments and ongoing “hot spotting,” Wellstar uses structured care pathways with multiple touchpoints over time. These pathways can include interventions such as targeted retreats and individualized reviews, including a “comprehensive well-being panel” — about 25 well-being labs — to pinpoint drivers of stress.
For example, a Wellstar retreat for 20 physicians, roughly half of whom were assessed as being at least at moderate risk of burnout or job strain, was part of a 90-day pathway that included follow-up support and reassessment to measure progress.
This approach allows Wellstar to segment specialties and compare trends — for example, internal medicine versus family medicine clinicians. Dr. Breshears said concerns vary by specialty, with some clinicians citing efficiency challenges and others pointing to leadership issues.
The precision well-being framework drives change from the system level down to divisions, service lines and clinics, and ultimately to individual clinicians. The approach is based on the idea that missing a clinicians’ motivations, needs and pain points will lead to ineffective solutions.
Dr. Breshears’ dual role informs the strategy.
“There’s the patient-focused, external-focused work that we’re doing to drive great quality and safe patient care, but then also have that opportunity to turn my focus inside the organization and see how our clinicians are doing and work towards implementing solutions that are going to help to reduce and mitigate the stress that they deal with day to day,” he said.
Rather than treating burnout as an individual issue, Wellstar reframed it as a systems and operations challenge, operating under the principle that “where there’s operations, there are well-being implications,” he said. The system partners across operations, finance, quality and safety to address systemic drivers of stress and embed well-being into decision-making.
The shift toward upstream intervention accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. About six to 12 months into it, the system began reassessing its long-term strategy and began targeting root causes of stress, Dr. Breshears said.
Beyond systemwide assessments, Wellstar also evaluates the impact of operational changes with clinical and operational teams. For example, pre- and post-analysis of its ambient scribe technology rollout showed reduced documentation time, less after-hours work, lower emotional exhaustion, reduced cognitive burden and increased clinician autonomy.
The framework also incorporates behavioral and personality data to predict burnout risk. The system can begin to anticipate which clinicians may be at a higher risk based on workload, values and personality traits.
“At the end of the day, you can have two physicians who are working in the same practice, have very comparable job demands, have access to the same resources, and yet one individual is thriving and one individual is not,” Dr. Breshears said.
Execution relies on a centralized well-being office with distributed operational ownership. The office functions as an internal consultancy, conducting assessments and identifying risks across clinical groups. It also convenes operational stakeholders and clinical leaders to address well-being challenges.
Direct physician engagement is central to the model’s success. Individual reviews allow clinicians to examine their own data and identify actionable steps.
“It gives an opportunity to curate in real time, drill down and identify what are the drivers of my stress, and what are actionable things that could be undertaken in order to allow me to experience the work life balance that I want or experience more fulfillment in my career,” Dr. Breshears said.
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