This story is one of more than 20 health system profiles featured in the 2025 AMA Joy in Medicine® magazine (log into your AMA account to view).
They call it the art of healing, yet for many physicians the craft of caregiving often comes with heavy doses of paperwork, digital documentation and the burden of burnout. That is why at Atlantic Health, physician well-being is not just a priority, it’s a necessity. And it starts with assessing the current state of physician burnout at the organization.
For about six years, Atlantic Health has remained committed to assessing the state of physician burnout and well-being. While the system has used different surveys in the past, they are now exploring the benefit of measuring with the AMA’s Organizational Biopsy®.
These assessment insights help drive Atlantic Health’s strategies from workflow redesign to professional development opportunities.
The big themes that have been identified through assessment opportunities have been “similar trends as we see nationally,” says Shai Gavi, DO, MPH, an internal medicine physician and chief medical officer for Atlantic Medical Group. For example, “Physicians want to feel like they have an opportunity to provide a voice and feel heard.”
Then “certainly understandable is the need for work-life balance and being able to disconnect from work when leaving work,” Dr. Gavi said. “The other piece is around staffing and resources, making sure that people feel like they have enough staffing and help.”
Knowing the results of different assessments and how Atlantic Health compares nationally “validates that some of the issues are national, not necessarily local,” he says. “But at the same time, we also impress upon physicians that just because something is national and happens everywhere doesn’t mean that we don’t want to take it seriously and address it.
“That’s an important thing that we try to emphasize and even though we do better than national in some of those areas, it’s still a priority for us,” Dr. Gavi adds.
Analyzing data across all levels
“The data gets looked at from different lenses through the leadership as well,” says Jeanine Bulan, MD, associate chief medical officer for primary care and population health initiatives at Atlantic Medical Group.
As a physician-led organization, this also means including members of the board and leaders across Atlantic Health.
“Everybody is looking at the data to see where the opportunities are and also where the successes are,” says Dr. Bulan, adding that “it’s analyzed by a broad scope of leadership, but also from our physician community to make sure we get feedback from them. We need to hear their voices too.”
