Pilot Intervention of Wearable Smart Device and Coaching to Improve Sleep, Well-being, and Professional Fulfilment among Female Clinicians in Primary Care

Introduction: Previous research has suggested an association between lack of sleep and well-being. Given higher rates of burnout among female clinicians, the Sutter Health “Joy of Work” team (a multidisciplinary group dedicated to improving organizational well-being) conducted a pilot among female clinicians in ambulatory services to assess factors associated with sleep, professional fulfillment, and intention to leave/reduce work hours. Methods: The intervention consisted of several components: an Oura ring (a wearable smart ring device that tracks activity, sleep, and heart rate); health coaches who sent text messages to participants and advised those participants with additional resources and questions; and three online group education sessions with the health coaches and a physician sleep expert to support sleep hygiene and sleep behavioral change. Participants used the Oura ring for 8-12 weeks. Baseline and post-intervention surveys and Oura ring data were collected upon participants’ agreement. Fisher’s Exact test and Unpaired t-tests were used to assess associations between sleep and wellness indicators. Linear mixed-effect models were conducted to capture the weekly change of Oura ring sleep outcomes. Results: Twenty-six clinicians completed the baseline survey and 19 completed the post-intervention survey. All 26 participants were female and composed of 23 physicians and 3 advanced practice clinicians. When asked if they believed they improved their sleep during the pilot experience, 78.9% reported yes/maybe. 82.2% reported improvements on their well-being. Regarding Oura ring sleep outcomes, the average nightly awake time and light sleep time were statistically significantly reduced by 1 minute and 3 minutes over the weeks. In comparison, the average deep sleep time was statistically significantly increased by 1 minute. Conclusion: Understanding sleep patterns and health education on improving sleep quality may be associated with an increase in self-reported perceptions of overall well-being and professional fulfilment. The subjective improvements in well-being were combined with slight objective improvement in deep sleep time. Additional research is needed to understand the differences between subjective and objective measures of sleep and clinician well-being.