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About a year into the COVID pandemic, leaders and employees in Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital's mission department took a step back from the grind. They looked at the harm the pandemic had wreaked on team members and asked themselves how the hospital could help.

They knew clinicians and employees were overwhelmed, emotionally taxed and burnt out — with many considering leaving the medical field. These mission department colleagues were familiar with in-depth compassion training offered by Emory University. The mission colleagues wondered if the Cognitively Based Compassion Training program from Emory University's Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics could help the hospital's team members and community.

Now, a year into offering compassion training at Emory Saint Joseph's, those mission department colleagues say the training is having measurable positive impacts on the hospital's staff, clinicians and patients.

"Nurses, physicians and others are having a sense of relief and are really paying attention to what is happening within them," says Maureen Shelton, system director of education and training for Emory Healthcare's spiritual health department. "They are having self-compassion and a warm heart, and this is protecting them from burnout and secondary trauma."

She adds that Emory Saint Joseph's is building "a culture of compassion. And this is a gift that has been flowering."

Buddhist affiliation
Emory University, its Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics, and Emory Healthcare are all in Atlanta. Emory Healthcare is part of Emory University. The 410-bed Emory Saint Joseph's is Atlanta's oldest hospital, and it has been part of Emory Healthcare since Emory and Saint Joseph's parent formed a joint operating company in 2012. The hospital has about 2,000 employees and more than 600 physicians.

The ethics center offers various iterations of its Cognitively Based Compassion Training. The center's programming leads participants through eight modules. Each module teaches different skills or insights to build inner capabilities that deepen compassion toward oneself and others. Many of the skills are rooted in contemplative practices of Tibetan Buddhism, but the programming has been designed to be secular and to meld with each participant's particular religious tradition or belief system.

The compassion center and its programming were founded and developed by Lobsang Tenzin Negi, the center's executive director. Born in a remote Himalayan region adjoining Tibet, Negi became a Buddhist monk and completed monastic training in Dharamsala and Mundgod, India. He moved to Atlanta and in 1991 began graduate studies and teaching at Emory University. In 1998, he helped forge an affiliation between Emory University and the top Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, creating the center. In 2003, a student urged him to find a way to apply the contemplative practices at the heart of his study and teaching to what that student saw as a burgeoning mental health crisis among students.

That spurred the past two decades of his work.

The outcomes included developing teacher certification and participant training courses, expanding the online tools of the center, and building awareness of compassion training among groups that could benefit. All along, Negi and his growing staff have collaborated with academic partners on numerous studies. That research has demonstrated that compassion training supports people's health and well-being and improves how they impact others.

Perfect storm
Mike Garrido has been vice president of mission integration at Emory Saint Joseph's for about 3 1/2 years, and Cheri Tiernan has been a chaplain at the hospital for eight years. Several years ago, they and others in the mission department began exploring new ways to support the well-being of colleagues.

"After the pandemic hit, there was this perfect storm of conditions that led to burnout," says Garrido. "We needed an evidence-based way for those who were overwhelmed and stressed to get help. We wanted to help them rebuild their resilience and inner strength. We wanted to reenergize our physicians."

Among their ideas: tapping into the compassion center's expertise to offer training to Saint Joseph's colleagues. The mission department group built a case for it with hospital leadership, and presented the research showing the training's many benefits, such as reducing high blood pressure and other physical and mental stress responses.

Compassion walks, spa days, retreats
Since Saint Joseph's began offering the compassion training to team members last year, about 100 employees and physicians have taken it. Garrido and Tiernan say the groups who have taken the training are eager to continue their self-improvement efforts and they also enjoy continuing to practice their skills as a community. Staff have proactively organized regular contemplative walks. Saint Joseph's now offers "spa days" quarterly, when employees can go to a quiet, set-aside space to get a massage, stretch or meditate. Saint Joseph's also offers meditative retreats in line with the compassion training.

Tiernan says she's heard from employees who have completed the training that they better understand why self-care is so important and they feel they have new tools to care for themselves and others.

Garrido says beyond anecdotal evidence that team members are feeling less burned out, which helps them and those around them, the mission department has some quantitative evidence of change. He says employee resiliency, engagement and belongingness scores have improved on Press Ganey and other surveys since the compassion training started. Patient satisfaction scores have also improved.

Mission advancement
Garrido says the compassion training integrates nicely with the mission and core values of Saint Joseph's, which was founded by the Sisters of Mercy. "You can infuse compassion training with your own tradition," he explains.

Compassion is a core value associated with the Mercy charism, and "we see that value in relation to social justice," he says. "We see that compassion moves people to change and to recognize the intrinsic value of every person. This is all related to the Sisters of Mercy, and their mission to relieve suffering."

"This is a tangible expression of Christ's love," he says.

The mission department hopes to engage as many team members as possible in the training.

Emory's Shelton notes that staff from other Catholic health facilities, including colleagues from Ascension and Trinity Health, have taken the compassion training at Emory's center.

"Burnout in health care is an epidemic now," Tiernan says. "Our staff are good at caring for others, but they need to also care for themselves — and then they can give of themselves to others."

She says that with what they've learned through compassion training, employees "have a wellspring to draw on. Through compassion training, we can see we all share a common humanity. We can be grateful for how we benefit each other. And we can find inspiration to help those who are suffering."