The American Medical Association (AMA) recognized 22 health care organizations as the first recipients of the inaugural Joy in Medicine™ Recognition. The new distinction offered by the AMA recognizes health care organizations that have committed to efforts that improve physician satisfaction and reduce burnout.

“It is a great honor to recognize the outstanding achievements of the organizations selected for the Joy in Medicine Recognition,” said AMA Board Chair Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, M.D., M.P.H. “These organizations are true leaders in promoting physician well-being and continue to make a difference in the lives of our nation’s health care workforce.”

Candidates and their achievements to reduce physician burnout were evaluated against criteria demonstrating competencies in commitment, assessment, leadership, efficiency of practice environment, teamwork and support.

The recipients of the inaugural Joy in Medicine Recognition are:

Ascension Medical Group, St. Louis, Mo.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Mass.
Boston Medical Center, Boston, Mass.
Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio
Geisinger Health System, Danville, Pa.
Gould Medical Group, Modesto, Calif.
Heartland Health Centers, Chicago, Ill.
Icahn School of Medicine Mount Sinai, New York, N.Y.
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
National Capital Region Military Health System, Bethesda, Md.
Northwestern Medicine, Chicago, Ill.
Oak Street Health, Chicago, Ill.
Ochsner Health System, New Orleans, La.
Southern California Permanente Group, Calif.
St. Vincent Medical Group, Ind.
Stanford Health Care, Palo Alto, Calif.
University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora. Colo.
UNC Health Care, Chapel Hill, N.C.
UPMC, Pittsburgh, Pa.
University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, N.Y.
Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, Wash.
Wake Forest Baptist Health/Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, N.C.

The Joy in Medicine Recognition Program is a component of the AMA’s Practice Transformation Initiative, an ambitious new course of action to advance evidence-based solutions that fill the knowledge gap in effective solutions to the physician burnout crisis.

“The Joy in Medicine Recognition Program is designed by the AMA to serve as a guide and catalyst for organizations who are interested, engaged and committed in efforts to fight the root causes of physician burnout,” said Dr. Ehrenfeld. “The AMA is optimistic that the program will serve as a roadmap to reduce burnout within organizations and unite the health care community around systematic changes that will energize physicians in their life’s work of caring for patients.”

The founding of the Joy in Medicine Recognition Program was influenced by three timely and prominent sources—a call-to-action blog post in Health Affairs titled Physician Burnout is a Public Health Crisis: A Message to our Fellow CEOs, a research article published in JAMA Internal Medicine titled The Business Case for Investing in Physician Well-being, and the multi-stakeholder effort resulting in the Charter on Physician Well-being.

The AMA continues to work on every front to address the physician burnout crisis. Through our research, collaborations, advocacy and leadership, the AMA is working to make the patient‐physician relationship more valued than paperwork, preventive care the focus of the future, technology an asset and not a burden, and physician burnout a thing of the past.