Role of workplace culture in successful lifestyle medicine implementation: a qualitative case series among health systems in the USA.

Abstract

This study investigated how workplace culture may affect the development of lifestyle medicine (LM) programming in health systems to inform the successful growth of LM programs. No study has examined how the impact of workplace culture (shared knowledge, values and behaviours within an organisation) affects practitioners' abilities to engage in LM. A cross-sectional, multiple case study investigation of the implementation of LM in five health systems was conducted by administering semi-structured in-depth interviews (n=45) from May 2022 to January 2023. Following the transcription of interviews verbatim, narrative reports depicting each health system's experience with LM were drafted and collectively reviewed by the research team who discussed emerging themes. Five health systems across the USA that have implemented LM were selected based on diversity in size, location, payer model, and patient population. Administrative leaders, physicians and other personnel involved in the LM programming from selected health systems were invited to participate. The implementation of LM is facilitated when practices such as forming social groups, visually advertising LM and offering plant-based cafeteria items are present to support core values, such as trust, gratitude, collaboration and optimism. LM implementation can be supported by health system clinicians and administrators striving to make their workplaces more supportive and synergetic so that they can take advantage of all available resources. Future research should further explore this relationship between cultural factors and resource availability.