Penn Medicine is committed to creating a culture in which faculty members feel empowered to grow professionally and personally, achieve their goals, and accomplish great things.
In support of this mission, the Faculty Wellness Initiative was launched in 2016. The initiative is an innovative endeavor geared towards maximizing wellness, promoting a healthy work-life balance, enhancing productivity, and making Penn Medicine the preferred place to work.
To kick-off the efforts, the wellness committee hosted an innovation challenge to crowdsource ideas for services, amenities, and programming to enhance faculty experience.
Over the course of four weeks, 124 creative ideas were submitted. In addition, more than 2,000 ratings and 290 comments were logged on the Your Big Idea platform.
After much deliberation, ten ideas were chosen as winners and priorities for the Faculty Wellness Committee over the next year.
There were also many great ideas submitted to the campaign that the committee identified for consideration at the division and department levels. You can learn more about the winning ideas and ideas for local implementation in the challenge report.
If you’d like to share feedback, have a question, or want to submit additional ideas, please send the team a message at facultywellness@uphs.upenn.edu.
Winning Ideas
- Lactation support, Carmela Vittorio
- Collaborate and Innovate Faculty Lounge, Tessa Cook
- On-site walk-in daycare, Roy Hamilton
- Concierge medical care, Dan Vogl
- Tech genius bar, Paul Ufberg
- Guess who's coming to dinner, Jack Ende
- Take out meals, Anonymous
- Faculty fitness center, Matt Palmer
- Bicycling and walking incentives, Desmond Oathes
- Convenient farmer's markets, Anonymous
Ideas for Local Implementation
- Email free zone
- Meditation program
- Rotating department volunteer days
- Sit and stand desk and walking machine desks
- Peer-to-peer reward
- Incentivize healthy habits
- Thousand extra miles
- Dragon for everyone for PennChart
- Raffle for signing up for MyPennMedicine
- From cacophony to symphony in the operating room using Amazon Echo