Eliminating burnout through a Unified REsearch agenda: Knowledge to Action
EUREKA
Aim 1: Develop research competencies and a health services research agenda within LHS devoted to healthcare worker (HCW) wellness, clarifying highest yield methods for ensuring HCW wellness, burnout reduction and retention.
Aim 2: Disseminate and encourage implementation of wellness-related best practices, with year 2’s conference focused on developing a dissemination plan and establishing a cadre of wellness scholars (named in honor of John Eisenberg) to carry on this work.
Eureka 1
Meet the Team!
Mark Linzer, MD
PI and director of Institute of Professional Worklife (IPW). Works at Hennepin Healthcare located in Minneapolis, MN. A large portion of his research has been devoted to understanding the mechanisms of physician burnout and the means to predict and prevent it.
Emily O'Brien, PhD, FAHA
Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences and Neurology at Duke University, Core Faculty at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, and Co-Director of Population Health Sciences at the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
Erin E. Sullivan, PhD
Associate Professor of Healthcare Management at Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School. Her work focuses on elevating primary care in the U.S. health system, reducing burnout, advancing physician leadership, and strengthening rural health.
Mike Wambua, MS
Research Project Manager with a MS in Applied Clinical Research. Research background includes experience with randomized trials, observational studies, and projects focused on provider wellness and burnout prevention.
Sara Poplau, BA
Operations Manager of Institute of Professional Worklife (IPW). Research includes provider satisfaction and wellness, as well as burnout prevention for employees,
Meeting #1
Durham NC, April 8, 2024, was led by Dr. Emily O’Brien at Duke and Project Manager Alli Bosquet. Approximately 20 health services researchers and Chief Wellness Officers gathered to review evidence and begin to define a national agenda for burnout research. Areas for focus were entered onto a Miro Board and revised throughout the upcoming year leading up to Meeting #2 where they were formalized via a Delphi Method into a national agenda for research in burnout reduction. Several projects and manuscripts emanated from this meeting, including a state of the art meta-narrative review of burnout studies and 9 bold suggestions for the future (in HCMR), a treatise on intervention trials to better understand flourishing in healthcare workers (from Vanderbilt team, published in LHS), and a summary of current data on the pulse of primary care, with Dr. Etz’s data out of VCU, led by Dr. Goelz and published in JGIM. IPW had a strong presence at the meeting and connected the activities to their ongoing, nation-leading work. The team expressed gratitude to AHRQ for supporting the Eureka project. Future work planned included a call for papers for ACI on stress from electronic health records with Eureka leaders as Associate Editors, a paper on equity and wellness for BMJ Leader, and the final national agenda paper targeted for BMJ.
Meeting #2
25 Health Services Researchers and CWOs gathered again to review the final research agenda and complete the Delphi method for agreement on what topics to include. We also had small group discussions of numerous high impact topics (nursing, rural, HSR, primary care, …), and inaugurated the Eisenberg Scholar program in honor of John Eisenberg, former AHRQ Director, with 4 stellar scholars to carry on wellness scholarly activities. (Scholars: Michaella Alexandrou, MD, Minneapolis Heart Institute; Michael Cauley, PhD, Vanderbilt University, Jas Sara, MBChB, PhD, Minneapolis Heart Institute and Tim Usset, PhD, Minneapolis VA.
​
Photos captured by Shane the Photographer.
Event Organizers
Eisenberg Scholars
Eureka 2
Meet the Team!
Mark Linzer, MD
PI and director of Institute of Professional Worklife (IPW). Works at Hennepin Healthcare located in Minneapolis, MN. A large portion of his research has been devoted to understanding the mechanisms of physician burnout and the means to predict and prevent it.
Carolyn Audet, PhD, MSci
Anthropologist and implementation scientist with a focus on improving health outcomes of individuals living in under resourced facilities and health systems.
Mike Wambua, MS
Research Project Manager with a MS in Applied Clinical Research. Research background includes experience with randomized trials, observational studies, and projects focused on provider wellness and burnout prevention.
Sara Poplau, BA
Operations Manager of Institute of Professional Worklife (IPW). Research includes provider satisfaction and wellness, as well as burnout prevention for employees,
Eureka 2 was submitted to AHRQ as an R13 award on August 12th, 2025 to study flourishing in healthcare workers (HCWs) and its impact on patient safety. There would be two conferences, one in Nashville TN in September 2026 and the second in Minneapolis in September 2027 to develop the measurement tools and national agenda for flourishing in varied HCW roles and how the impact of HCW flourishing on patient outcomes can be used to support the business case for burnout reduction work.