WellSpan Health has been named by the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) as one of two 2025 Acclaim Award honorees. The award recognizes the system’s efforts and initiatives focused on high-quality care in a delivery model that is safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient and equitable.

“We’re honored to receive this recognition from AMGA as we know it collectively represents the commitment of our teams to deliver a personalized care experience for every one of our patients,” said Dr. David Vega, senior vice president and chief medical officer, WellSpan Health. “At WellSpan we’re excited to be on the front lines of innovation – all part of our strategy to simplify and streamline the complex world of health care for our patients.”

AMGA specifically highlighted the following WellSpan initiatives:

• Addressing chronic pain care gaps and the national economic impact of chronic pain ($600B) by a novel implementation of the transdisciplinary model to better serve the population, with early success of the WellSpan Restorative Pain Program demonstrating promising results and the likelihood of improving function and lower economic cost in a sustainable and replicable model.
• Identifying the risk for lead poisoning in children and working with local and state health departments to mitigate the risk for exposed children.
• Targeting avoidable health failure admissions, unnecessary inpatient rehabilitation referrals, and avoidable emergency department utilization to reduce care costs.
• Reimagining an internal Wellness Portal to provide a single repository for well-being resources, including access to the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and other well-being materials.

WellSpan has made significant strides by establishing a strong foundation of awareness and education in these areas, launching initiatives to streamline access to cost-effective care, and setting systemwide goals to significantly reduce avoidable care costs. For example, WellSpan has enhanced its patient engagement platform using a fast pass feature to reschedule 58,000 appointments to earlier times for patients, thereby preventing symptom escalation and reducing care expenses that can come from delayed access.

The AMGA Acclaim Award, first awarded in 1999 at the AMGA Annual Conference, began as a way of recognizing medical groups for outstanding improvement in patient care. Award criteria include improving the patient experience of care, improving the health of populations with a focus on quality outcomes, reducing the per capita cost of health care and emphasizing workplace wellness. For more information on the Acclaim Award, visit https://www.amga.org/about-amga/awards/acclaim-award. 

For details on how WellSpan prioritizes safety and quality in everything it does, visit www.Wellspan.org/Quality.