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.
