In 2022, Atrium Health merged with Advocate Aurora Health to make a new organization, Advocate Health. At that time, Atrium Health had received gold level designation from the AMA’s Joy in Medicine® Health System Recognition Program. As a new health system, Advocate Health decided the next step was to go for gold for the entire organization.
“When it was getting close to expiring in 2025 and we knew it was time to apply again, we really wanted to see if we could expand it across Advocate Health,” said Suzanna Fox, MD, an ob-gyn and EVP chief physician officer of Advocate Health. “When we came together as an organization three years ago, one of the very first things that we did was take a visit up to Advocate in Chicago and started talking about our “Best Place to Care” work.
“We wanted to know what they had, what best practice was, what they were doing to support their physicians and advanced practice professionals to see that we could really create a program that would scale across our entire organization,” Dr. Fox added. “And we had a lot in common. We were doing a tremendous amount of work in this space in our regions and also prioritized it, so it made it really easy to say that, ‘Yes, we want to come together as one Advocate Health for the Joy in Medicine recognition.’”
“It’s a testament that when our organization aligns with health systems across the country that one of the biggest things that we look for is a cultural fit,” said Dr. Fox. “There was no surprise to us that when we met with our colleagues in Illinois and Wisconsin that they had a lot of work done around this and they were prioritizing it the same way we were here.”
“Our team is so much better from this early integration because our teams work collectively—they report up through the same structure,” she said. “We are all setting our priorities the same way and learning from each other continuously. So, it has been really easy and has helped elevate all of us.”
Advocate Health is part of the AMA Health System Member Program, which provides enterprise solutions to equip leadership, physicians and care teams with resources to help drive the future of medicine.
Choosing who to lead the application
When it came to applying for the Joy in Medicine Health System Recognition program, choosing the person who would lead the process was straight-forward.
“We have an amazing administrative enterprise leader for Best Place to Care in Yasemin Moore. She was naturally positioned to lead it, so that was easy,” said Dr. Fox, emphasizing that “she is fantastic and really deserves a lot of the credit for this work and for this recognition.”
There is also a large oversight team across Advocate Health in North Carolina, Georgia, Illinois and Wisconsin who helped in the process. Before applying for gold, it was brought to the oversight team to confirm that collectively everyone wanted to go for this recognition.
“It’s a very in-depth application, so we wanted to make sure we had the right people at the table,” she said. “Then we created a much smaller work group to lead the project and ensure we were meeting the key criterion to apply.”
While Dr. Fox and Moore had familiarity with the Joy in Medicine application, having applied twice before with Atrium Health, the gap analysis allowed them to determine what needed to be accomplished to qualify for each of the six pillars of the program. Once those areas were identified, key stakeholders were engaged to help.
Committing to improving well-being
In 2025, Advocate Health received gold level recognition from the AMA’s Joy in Medicine program, cementing all their hard work to align as one organization.
“The reputation of the AMA speaks for itself, so being aligned with such a prominent and well-respected organization, knowing the priorities of the AMA, the fact that we were recognized by them was extremely important to us,” said Dr. Fox. “Also, the AMA gives us a really good framework for the work we’re doing. They are not only partners with us, but they also help us develop our strategies based on a lot of the information that we get.”
What also stands out with this recognition is that “the AMA absolutely has commitment to advancing this work and excellence, so being able to align with that is important,” she said.
“Recognition in and of itself is nice, but what drives me is actually the work and making sure that we take care of our clinicians. The fact that then we are recognized by an organization such as the AMA in this work means a lot to us,” Dr. Fox said. “It means a lot to our physicians and advanced practice professionals. It means a lot to even our operation and executive leaders too.”
As the leader in physician well-being, the AMA is reducing physician burnout by removing administrative burdens and providing real-world solutions to help doctors rediscover the Joy in Medicine.
Demonstrating organizational pride
With gold level recognition, Advocate Health continues to work on ways to demonstrate organizational pride for receiving this designation.
To start, though, Dr. Fox sends thanks “to the AMA because they did put billboards up in Charlotte, which was very kind of them. I took a picture every time I saw it—not driving, but when I was at traffic lights.”
The billboards stood out in the bright, blue skies for all to see and read, “Thank you, Atrium Health for making physician well-being a top priority.”
“We also have an extensive communication plan with our physicians and advanced practice professionals that includes internal emails and social media channels,” she said. For example, “on LinkedIn, our message was really delivered with gratitude, with a thank you to them for continuing to give us a voice, trust, engagement, so that we can create our strategies based on what they’re telling us.”
“One thing that was exceptionally humbling to me is that Gene Woods, our CEO, expressed such significant pride in this,” Dr. Fox said. “We’ve had lots of meetings where he picks just a few things that he is exceptionally proud of that our organization has accomplished over the prior year and in every single one of those he discussed the AMA Joy in Medicine recognition. That helped us demonstrate the recognition.”
Dr. Fox and her team also spoke with physicians and nonphysician providers in Advocate Health’s Best Place to Care meetings as well as during leader rounding to their teams. Biweekly communication was also sent to all physicians and care teams about what was going on within the organization that included information about the recognition.
Leveraging for recruitment and retention
Through the recognition from the Joy in Medicine program, Advocate Health can also enhance recruitment and retention efforts.
“Part of our Best Place to Care initiative is that we have different pillars, but one of the pillars is onboarding and retention of our physicians and advanced practice professionals,” said Dr. Fox. “The work we do around Best Place to Care and this recognition with Joy in Medicine starts from when we recruit our clinicians—starts with day one of orientation—where we share everything about this work and what it means to not only come into our organization but hopefully spend their entire career with us.”
This is something Dr. Fox knows well because she has spent her entire 34-year career in Charlotte, starting with Atrium Health before they merged to form Advocate Health.
“It is used as a recruiting tool too. People want to hear that we’re an organization where we really care about our people,” she said. “The AMA recognition bolsters this sentiment, and people are really inspired by this as well.