The WSMA Foundation’s quality initiatives reflect our commitment to advancing quality care and promoting healthy populations across Washington. Here’s what that looked like in recent years:
Wellness Report: “Thriving in Medicine”
- Helping to meet the WSMA Foundation's goal to strengthen physician wellness and restore joy in practice by developing and delivering organizational level intervention plans to reduce burnout and improve wellness.
Background and impact
In 2024, the WSMA Foundation worked collaboratively to: 1.) identify best practices that reduce burnout and improve physician and physician assistant well-being at work; and 2.) invite health care organizations and systems to meet these criteria.
Funded by a $150,000 grant from the Physicians Foundation, a wellness action committee convened in October 2023 to work on a best-practices report. Published in 2024, the report, “Thriving in Medicine: Cultivating Choice, Competence, and Community,” puts forth a set of criteria for organizations, leaders, physicians, and practitioners to assess and implement positive changes in their places of employment to allow employed physicians and practitioners to thrive. The report was disseminated to chief medical officers, chief executive officers, and wellness leadership in September 2024. The report was also the focus at a WSMA Foundation CEO-CMO Wellness Summit in October 2024 held in collaboration with the WSMA Medical Officer Collaborative. CEOs, CMOs, and wellness leaders from medical groups, health care organizations, and health systems gathered at the event to learn about the new criteria and were asked to pledge to meet the criteria.
The WSMA Foundation has continued to promote the “Thriving in Medicine” wellness report into 2025, partnering with the WSMA to disseminate via the medical association’s communication vehicles, including member newsletters and social media. The report has been a frequent focus of articles published in WSMA Reports, the member magazine for the medical association. These publications and platforms have reached more than 12,000 physicians and physician assistants throughout Washington, as well as health care stakeholders and the public, keeping the issue of systemic changes to promote physician and practitioner wellness at the forefront of health care discourse in Washington state.
The WSMA Foundation for Health Care Improvement and the WSMA have made physician and physician assistant well-being a top priority. Our front-line physicians and physician assistants need to know that we take this seriously. We are putting our resources into this work.”
Alka Atal-Barrio, MD
Chair of the WSMA Foundation Wellness Action Committee
Physician and Practitioner Wellness Webinar Series and Podcast
- Helping to meet the WSMA Foundation's goal to strengthen physician wellness and restore joy in practice by designing and delivering a peer support educational program for all physicians and physician assistants across the state.
Background and impact
After completing a literature review of peer support resources and interviewing several wellness committee members and other thought leaders who work in the wellness space, three UW masters of health administration students presented their findings in May 2024 to members of the WSMA Foundation’s board of directors and wellness action committee. The students recommended best practices and action items to consider when planning a peer support program, organized in eleven different topics.
Using the information presented by the students, WSMA and WSMA Foundation staff developed the Physician and Practitioner Wellness Webinar Series, offering CME credit. The general aim of the program is to describe best practices for establishing a peer support relationship between physician colleagues and provide a model to establish a peer support program within a clinic, medical group, or health system. The webinar series features a rotating menu of monthly speakers presenting their current research related to strengthening physician and practitioner wellness and restoring the joy of practice. The series is held at noon on the second Monday of each month starting August 2024.
The webinar series provides resources on topics such as creating a culture of wellness, creating effective teams, and drawing on evidence-based work on wellness. The topics of the webinar are identified as critical for physicians, physician assistants, and health care organizations to commit to prioritizing wellness and aligning their efforts to reduce burnout and improve professional satisfaction. The Physician and Practitioner Wellness Webinar Series is part of a framework adapted by the WSMA that promotes self-determination theory and key drivers of wellness.
Since its launch, the WSMA Foundation’s Physician and Practitioner Wellness Webinar Series has reached hundreds of MDs, DOs, and resident physicians and nearly 50 non-physician practitioners.
This seminar is very helpful. As preflight instruction tells passengers to apply oxygen to themselves before helping others, so we need to be healthy ourselves if we expect to help others.” – Wellness Webinar Series attendee
A wellness podcast
In 2024, the WSMA and WSMA Foundation presented a new wellness podcast for physicians, practitioners, and their health care organizations to find inspiration to take meaningful action that will reduce burnout and improve professional satisfaction using the latest research.
The Physician and Practitioner Wellness Podcast started as recordings of the live webinar events of the Physician and Practitioner Wellness Webinar Series. The podcast is offered on demand without the time constraints of a live event. For organizations looking to update or start wellness efforts, the podcast is a library of ideas on current practices from experts, providing resources on topics such as creating a culture of wellness, creating effective teams, and drawing on evidence-based work on wellness.
The podcast is free and open to all practitioner types. As of July 2025, there are eleven episodes.
Health Equity Leadership Development Course
- Helping to meet the WSMA Foundation's goal to advance health equity in all communities by addressing gaps in health equity through education and clinical transformations.
Background and impact
In partnership with the WSMA, the WSMA Foundation developed and hosted a health equity leadership development course. Titled the Health Equity Leadership Development and Action Collective, the course was designed as a “train the trainers” to equip health care leaders to lead system-wide changes to culture, policy, and clinical care to advance health equity in their organizations.
The WSMA Foundation launched the first Health Equity Leadership Development and Action Collective in September 2022. The cohort included 16 leaders from nine health organizations representing more than 500 physicians and health professionals. The series was led by Professor Edwin Lindo, JD, health equity consultant to the WSMA and the WSMA Foundation, and assistant dean of social and health justice in the Office of Healthcare Equity. A second course was held in 2024 and included leaders from nine health organizations representing more than 500 physicians and health professionals.
Health Equity M&M Webinar Series
- Helping to meet the WSMA Foundation's goal to advance health equity in all communities by addressing gaps in health equity through education and clinical transformations.
Background and impact
In 2023 and 2024, the WSMA and WSMA Foundation developed and hosted the Health Equity M&M Webinar Series (think "morbidity and mortality," but with a focus on health equity), to help provide a framework for conversations in which attendees are encouraged to recognize and examine biases and identify the ways systemic racism exists in our organizations. The continuing education series fosters a space conducive to building a community of professionals focused on achieving health equity, allowing for discussions of charged but necessary topics.
We didn’t want this to come out as one more task due and not be meaningful. How could we wrap this up in a way that physicians would be excited about it, with high-quality education rounds, high-quality speakers, case studies, and physicians bringing their own real-world experiences into play.”
Alexander Hamling, MD, MBA, FAAP
Chair of WSMA’s CME program committee
Each webinar was protected under WSMA's coordinated quality improvement program. Professor Edwin Lindo, JD, was the facilitator. Lindo is the assistant dean of social and health justice in the Office of Healthcare Equity, an associate teaching professor in the department of family medicine, and an adjunct associate teaching professor in the department of bioethics and humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Over the course of the series, the sessions featured 109 physician interactions and 13 health care professional interactions.
[Webinars] like Mr. Lindo’s help us to understand the ‘why’ of our health system producing inequality whether or not any individual actually intends that outcome…A forum in which we can all look at systems of privilege, power, and equity is a really important part of every physician’s professional and personal growth.”
David Cundiff, MD
Webinar attendee
[Lindo] does a very good job of providing historical information to help other people who may not experience racism in health care understand what if feels like to be a person of color and not feel well cared for.”
Sonja Maddox, MD
Health Equity M&M Webinar attendee
Health Equity in Medicine Podcast
- Helping to meet the WSMA Foundation's goal to advance health equity in all communities by addressing gaps in health equity through education and clinical transformations.
Background and impact
The WSMA Foundation collaborated with Professor Edwin Lindo, JD, to produce engaging and convenient health equity education. Introduced in 2024, the Health Equity in Medicine Podcast with Edwin Lindo, JD was formatted as a four-part audio miniseries covering the history of racism in medicine and the impacts of the medical profession on health equity. Lindo shares how some of physicians have tackled these thorny issues, structurally and individually, and gives the learner ideas on how to incorporate equity principles into their medical practice. The podcast fulfills the Washington state requirement of two hours in health equity continuing education at least once every four years.
WSMA Scholarship and Diversity Advancement Fund
- Helping to meet the WSMA Foundation's goal to advance health equity in all communities by addressing gaps in health equity through education and clinical transformations.
Background and impact
The WSMA and WSMA Foundation partners in 2022 to launch the WSMA Foundation Scholarship and Diversity Advancement Fund, an endowment fund designed to build a more diverse physician population in Washington state by supporting medical students who are underrepresented in medicine. Our goal with the Scholarship and Diversity Advancement Fund is to offer scholarships beginning in 2026. We are striving to raise $1.5 million to award the first scholarship as we continue to grow the fund.
The fundraising campaign focused on high-net-worth individual giving. Throughout 2023 and 2024, the Foundation’s board of directors worked with Global Impact to understand the fund’s fundraising potential, to cultivate a list of high-net-worth individuals within the Washington state physician community, to connect with corporations and foundations about the Fund, and to help the Foundation board and key champions with one-on-one conversations and outreach.
In July 2024, WSMA’s board of trustees voted to contribute $500,000 to the fund. That October, the WSMA Foundation held a fundraising luncheon where WSMA trustees and delegates contributed another $225,000, including $100,000 from the WSMA Foundation board of directors. To date the endowment has $816,000 in paid gifts and $216,000 in pledges.
In August 2024, the Foundation moved to a more active grassroots campaign. WSMA and WSMA Foundation staff and consultants developed an 18-month fundraising plan focuses on grassroots fundraising, continued outreach to high-net-worth individuals, corporations and foundations, employee giving and planned giving campaigns.
Delivering Culturally Sensitive Care
- Helping to meet the WSMA Foundation's goal to advance health equity in all communities by addressing gaps in health equity through education and clinical transformations.
Background and impact
In partnership with WSMA’s quality improvement efforts, in 2024, the WSMA Foundation launched a program that shares best practices on assuring high quality and culturally sensitive care for specific conditions that disproportionately affect diverse communities. The best practices include guidance on building and maintaining trustworthy relationships with patients, which are critical to delivering equitable and culturally sensitive care.
The WSMA and the WSMA Foundation developed guidance for delivering culturally sensitive care for:
- Maternal mortality
- Early detection of endometrial cancer
- Early detection and screening for colon cancer
Throughout 2024 and 2025, the WSMA and the WSMA Foundation have disseminated the guidance documents through WSMA member publications, reaching thousands of physicians and physician assistants throughout the state. The WSMA has released a social media toolkit dedicated to health equity that promotes the best practices, disseminating to hundreds of health care stakeholders representing tens of thousands of physicians and practitioners. The best practices were disseminated to specialty societies within Washington state and have been the focus of several articles published in WSMA Reports, the WSMA member magazine that reaches more than 12,000 physicians and physician assistants.