The University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine recently took part in a study with findings that were published in the peer-reviewed journal Anesthesiology in February 2025.

Designed by a multi-institutional team of researchers from UCLA, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois, Chicago, and UAB, WISH — Well-Being Influencers Survey for Healthcare — is a novel assessment measuring workplace drivers/influencers of well-being. Going beyond traditional assessments of burnout and professional fulfillment, the tool examines factors that foster sustainable and rewarding careers for health care workers. 

Elizabeth Duggan, M.D., associate professor and vice chair for Professional Development and Faculty Engagement in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, collaborated with the team to develop WISH content and establish its validity as an assessment tool. WISH yields information relevant to stakeholders, quantifying well-being at the individual and climate levels to provide a framework to conceptualize change.

“There are numerous validated assessments examining individual well-being states, like burnout, engagement, stress and job satisfaction; however, we wanted to build a tool that provides useful data to support action,” Duggan said. “WISH shifts the focus of well-being to systemic factors, offering clear guidance on where to make meaningful changes to foster better-supported, more sustainable careers in health care.”

Duggan says her primary role has been to act as a content expert to design survey items, to determine linked antecedents and outcomes, and to contribute to the efforts to ensure assessment validity. 

“We spent a great deal of time planning our validation process — content, structural, convergent and discriminate, concurrent, and predictive validity were all included. We wanted to build a tool that met rigorous scientific standards for an assessment,” Duggan said.

With the UAB Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine recently taking this survey, the results will serve to validate the data across multiple institutions and also to provide the department with its own data set to enact change.

“Currently, WISH has been validated only in anesthesiology departments, but we would love to start moving into other specialties to validate,” Duggan said. “We are hopeful that the initial data is sufficiently convincing that early adopters will join our efforts to validate across the health care system.”