The National Academy of Medicine recently kicked off its second Change Maker Accelerators program, aimed at aiding healthcare organizations in implementing and measuring well-being efforts.
The NAM’s voluntary yearlong program builds on its 2022 National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being framework. Organizations must apply, and participation is free.
The program is part of NAM’s broader Change Maker campaign, which works to advance the national plan’s priority areas. About 520 organizations have become members since the campaign launched in October 2023.
Physician burnout peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic, though recent research indicates clinicians are still feeling the pressure. In February, Johnson & Johnson found more than half of surgeons report burnout. And, a March 30 Weill Cornell Medicine study found 43.5% of family physicians report feeling burned out.
Twenty-six organizations are participating in this year’s Accelerators program. Twenty-three participated in the first year of the program, according to Thu Anh Tran, senior program officer and director for the NAM Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience Program.
Tran told Fierce Healthcare the first cohort was “a pilot group” to gauge whether health systems were comfortable “being transparent” about successes and failures as well as using the national plan as a reporting framework.
“We're very grateful to the organizations that stepped up within our collaborative to participate in this Accelerator program,” Tran said. “They've been really instrumental in helping us shape it over the [past] year and a half.”
To meet the program’s eligibility requirements, organizations must be engaged in or planning to engage in well-being work at system or organizational levels. Organizations must also have the capacity to track quarterly data on activities and outcomes and share information on progress.
“In particular for this cohort, we wanted to make sure to target organizations that might not necessarily have access to some of the other networks and communities out there,” Tran said.
Tran said organizations that are newer to well-being initiatives were also prioritized for the current class of participants. “We specifically thought that the newcomers to this journey would benefit a lot [from the program’s structure,]” Tran said.
The Change Makers Accelerators program is comprised of monthly one-hour long coaching sessions, quarterly joint learning sessions and data tracking and two hybrid public meetings annually. There are also opportunities for retreats and closed member sessions.
University of Utah Health physician Amy Locke, M.D., said the progress tracking “helped the most” in keeping the system's progress its well-being goals.
“The in-person sessions were amazing,” Locke said. “It was such a great opportunity to hear what others were working on, to get ideas that we could then implement back at the University of Utah.”
Locke said the organization was an early collaborator of NAM’s well-being coalition, adding the program’s development of “measures of accountability” for such work prompted her personal interest in participation.
For Locke, takeaways from the program include “continuous evolution and improvement” for the University of Utah. “We continue to iterate on projects that we had been working on over a number of years,” Locke said.
Moreover, Locke said people “don’t necessarily understand the science” behind well-being despite it becoming a popular topic in healthcare, and try to implement solutions “that are very much in the ‘creating belonging’ space.”
“It's easy to have a picnic,” Locke said. “It's hard to change the way you communicate between teams in a complex hospital...And so often those things are not under the purview of a wellness person, yet they are the big drivers. So, it does take a concerted effort to solve those problems.”
Another inaugural Accelerators cohort was the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM).
Mark Speicher, Ph.D, AACOM’s senior vice president of research, learning and innovation, told Fierce Healthcare the organization had been working on a Resilient Mindsets in Medicine program when the opportunity to apply for Accelerators arose.
Speicher said the monthly coaching sessions were a mix of peer organizations that also work with medical students and those that do not, such as other health professions or early-stage physicians. “That was a great community to become a part of,” Speicher said. “And the coaches were very experienced in physician well-being and health professional well-being. So it was great to get their expertise.”
The 2026 iteration will feature 14 coaches, including six who were cohorts in the inaugural program class, Tran said.
A key takeaway for Speicher was institution-wide focus being the future of well-being efforts, and noted participation inspired AACOM to publish more research. “But even more so, I think we were inspired to increase our vision for what our program should be,” he said, adding that the organization has been working to spread its well-being initiatives to other health professions.
“We are hoping that the changes that we're making for our students at their colleges extend into the students’ residency training and into practice,” Speicher said. “We want these well-being changes to stick with the students.”
Since participation in the program is limited, Tran said NAM is continuously trying to find ways to share insights, including the Change Maker in Action webinar series.
“This is a very passionate and supportive community, which makes a lot of sense for well-being people,” Tran said. “But they really do walk the walk.”
Speicher said NAM “truly does bring together incredible experts in this field” and are committed to working with groups, such as the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation, that are “really moving well-being into a part of the conversation at all healthcare institutions.”
“The quality of people that you will meet as a part of this program you cannot reproduce anywhere else,” Speicher said.