Headspace Will Offer Free Access to Meditation and Mindfulness App to American Medical Association Members to Address Physician Burnout and Improve Resiliency

New benefit will give AMA members free access to Headspace’s tools
to reduce stress and burnout, increase compassion and more.

SANTA MONICA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today, Headspace announced that it will be the exclusive meditation and
mindfulness app provider for the American Medical Association (AMA).
Headspace is available to AMA’s member physicians, medical students, and
residents for free.


Headspace will be the only mindfulness and meditation app provider for
the largest association of physicians and medical students in the
country. Headspace will also provide exclusive content for the AMA’s
channels so its members can learn ways to incorporate the skills of
meditation and mindfulness into their daily lives, as well as the
benefits of establishing a meditation practice with Headspace.


Physician burnout is a universal challenge among the medical community.
Nearly half of all physicians say they experience burnout or depression
and these negatively impact their professional and personal lives.
Physician burnout has
been identified as a public health crisis for its adverse impacts
for both doctors and patients, including lower patient satisfaction and
care quality, higher medical error rate and malpractice risk, and staff
turnover. Research shows mindfulness meditation can positively impact
many of the factors related to burnout, including stress and depression.
Published Headspace research specifically shows reduction
in burnout after only four sessions among health care professionals
and reduction
in stress for medical professionals after 30 days.


Headspace employs an in-house science team that has collaborated with
over 35 prestigious academic institutions on 65+ studies on the efficacy
of Headspace tools. In 19 published studies in some of the country’s
leading peer-reviewed journals, Headspace has been shown to have
favorable outcomes of interventions, including a 22%
increase in focus, improved
compassion, increased
resilience, improved
satisfaction with life, and increased
happiness and positivity.


“Since its creation in 2010, Headspace’s vision has been to improve the
health and happiness of the world. An important part of the mission has
always been to normalize mindfulness in medicine. We are the only major
smartphone application player in the meditation category that is
committed to advancing the field of mindfulness meditation through
clinically validated research,” said Dr. Megan Jones Bell, Chief Science
Officer at Headspace. “This collaboration with the AMA brings us one
step closer to realizing Headspace’s vision of making meditation and
mindfulness mainstream, especially in the medical field, by continuing
to solidify Headspace’s commitment to improving health and happiness.”


“The AMA recognizes the tremendous importance of helping physicians
reduce stress and burnout, and improve their mental well-being because
we want to make physician burnout a thing of the past,” said AMA Chief
Experience Officer and Senior Vice President of Physician Engagement
Todd Unger. “The AMA strives to provide physicians with products that
can help them in their career journeys, and we are pleased to offer this
new opportunity to increase health and happiness through mindfulness
training.”


Physician burnout is a symptom of dysfunction in the US healthcare
system. By focusing on factors causing burnout at the organizational and
system level, the AMA is advancing the knowledge and catalyzing the
needed changes to reduce burnout and improve professional satisfaction
among physicians and within their organizations. While the AMA focuses
on these system-level issues, tools like Headspace complement these
important efforts and support self-care and personal wellness.


Headspace has one of the largest research pipelines of any digital
health and wellness company. In June 2018, Headspace announced its first
entry into healthcare through the creation of a new digital health
subsidiary, Headspace Health, to pioneer new ways to incorporate the
mindfulness experience into digital medicine.


ABOUT HEADSPACE


Headspace
was created with one mission in mind: to improve the health and
happiness of the world. To help us achieve our mission, we aim to
inspire, guide, and support our members in every step of their
meditation and mindfulness journey, reaching more than 45 million users
in 190 countries. The company also operates a B2B business to offer its
meditation products and services to more than 350 companies, such as
Google and LinkedIn, to help them build healthier, more productive
cultures and higher performing organizations. Headspace’s partnerships
team has forged robust relationships with many of the world’s most
recognizable brands, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Nike, NBA, and
more. In 2018, Headspace was featured as part of Apple’s #Bestof2018:
trends of the year on the AppStore. Headspace was also named one of
Amazon Alexa’s best health and wellness skills of 2018. For more
information, please visit us at www.headspace.com,
or follow us on Facebook,
Twitter,
and Instagram.


ABOUT AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION


The American Medical Association is the physicians’ powerful ally in
patient care. As the only medical association that convenes 190+ state
and specialty medical societies and other critical stakeholders, the AMA
represents physicians with a unified voice to all key players in health
care. The AMA leverages its strength by removing the obstacles that
interfere with patient care, leading the charge to prevent chronic
disease and confront public health crises and, driving the future of
medicine to tackle the biggest challenges in health care. For more
information, visit ama-assn.org.


Contacts

Headspace PR:Estela Weinmannestela.weinmann@headspace.com


AMA Media Relations:Joshua ZembikJoshua.Zembik@ama-assn.org312-464-4430