Arena Labs Awarded Second Healthcare Innovation Contract by AFWERX

Arena Labs and Advocate Health Conclude Groundbreaking “Performance Coaching” Collaboration

NASHVILLE, TN — January 15, 2025 — Arena Labs, a pioneer in cutting-edge wellness interventions for frontline healthcare workers, today announced the successful completion of its largest cohort to-date with Advocate Health. Advocate, the 3rd largest integrated health system in the US, deployed Arena Strive – Arena’s app-based micro-learning platform – across high-stress clinical specialties in hospitals spanning 8 states. Nearly 400 nurses and physicians participated in the 8-week program, which involves wearing a biometric sensor, interacting with a 1-on-1 performance coach, and completing a self-guided performance science curriculum that builds awareness and habits to mitigate burnout. 

Arena’s Founder and CEO, Brian Ferguson, is pleased with the results but notes that we’re still early in the adoption curve. “Dr. Geoff Rose and his team have continued to be the ideal partners in thinking about the wellbeing of frontline clinicians in an innovative, forward-leaning way. This cohort demonstrates our ability to reduce burnout and build resiliency in healthcare’s finest, at scale, and in an asynchronous way. We are grateful for this partnership and how it has allowed us to validate the Strive experience, not just for clinicians, but for the healthcare leaders looking to take action.”

Ferguson, a former Navy SEAL, founded Arena Labs in 2017 out of a collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic after seeing a lack of focus in healthcare on tools to manage pressure in the high-stress, high-stakes environment of modern medicine. Then COVID-19 placed additional strain on the industry’s workforce, amplifying what the US Department of Health & Human Services dubbed healthcare’s ‘burnout epidemic.’ “American healthcare continues to focus on the patient, at the expense of the person providing care. Most doctors and nurses are never taught how to manage the demands of serving in such a demanding career.  By bringing performance science and wearable technologies into the hospital, we’re equipping doctors and nurses with the same tools that Olympic athletes and elite military units use to handle stress and thrive in challenging environments.”

Arena Strive’s efficacy is calculated by administering a proprietary burnout index survey at the beginning and end of the 8 week experience. This cohort saw statistically significant reductions in several key burnout indicators, ultimately reducing turnover risk and improving the quality of care for patients. “Arena Labs is doing the most overdue, important work in modern healthcare,” said Dr. Geoff Rose, President of the Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute for Advocate Health. “We recognized the importance of leaning into wellness, not just to keep our employees at their best but also out of a sense of duty to our patients.” 

Arena Labs provides hospital administrators with anonymized population-level data on burnout trends by service line, facility, and a number of other verticals. This speeds up the feedback loop for healthcare leaders to proactively identify and mitigate wellness trends affecting everything from quality of care to employee retention. “We are embarking on an age of ‘high performance medicine,’ and are incredibly focused on building a world-class experience for clinicians to perform their best – recognizing that if we execute on our vision, hundreds of millions of patients will be better off,” Ferguson concluded. 

ABOUT ARENA LABS

Arena Labs is a human performance company pioneering the application of wearable technologies, coaching, and performance science for frontline healthcare professionals. Their flagship product, Arena Strive, is healthcare’s first digital performance coach. Strive delivers a micro-learning experience tailored specifically for doctors and nurses, but rooted in human performance techniques of elite military, top-tier athletes, and renowned creative performers. It produces anonymized, population-level data insights enabling healthcare leaders to attract, retain, and develop high performing teams. Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, Arena Labs has served over 2,000 clinicians through public and private partnerships in the US and Canada. For more information about Arena Labs, visit www.arenalabs.co and connect with us on LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

ABOUT ADVOCATE HEALTH

Advocate Health is the third-largest nonprofit integrated health system in the United States – created from the combination of Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health. Providing care under the names Advocate Health Care in Illinois, Atrium Health in the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama, and Aurora Health Care in Wisconsin, Advocate Health is a national leader in clinical innovation, health outcomes, consumer experience and value-based care, with Wake Forest University School of Medicine serving as the academic core of the enterprise. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Advocate Health serves nearly 6 million patients and is engaged in hundreds of clinical trials and research studies. It is nationally recognized for its expertise in cardiology, neurosciences, oncology, pediatrics and rehabilitation, as well as organ transplants, burn treatments and specialized musculoskeletal programs. Advocate Health employs nearly 155,000 team members across 68 hospitals and over 1,000 care locations and offers one of the nation’s largest graduate medical education programs with over 2,000 residents and fellows across more than 200 programs. Committed to equitable care for all, Advocate Health provides nearly $6 billion in annual community benefits. 

CONTACTS

ARENA LABS

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ADVOCATE HEALTH

Media Inquiries

MediaRelations@aah.org

Media@atriumhealth.org

Arena Labs Awarded Third Healthcare Innovation Contract by US Air Force

NASHVILLE, TN — January 15, 2025 — Arena Labs is proud to announce its selection for a Phase I Small Business Technical Transfer Award (STTR) contract with the U.S. Air Force. The contract, in coordination with tAFWERX, will work to integrate Arena Strive with medical teams at Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) in Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

This is a significant milestone for Arena Labs as it expands our partnership with the Department of Defense health system. BAMC is the DoD’s largest facility and only Level 1 Trauma Center, staffed by more than 8,000 Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, Civilians, and Contractors providing care to wounded Service Members and the San Antonio Community at-large.

This contract, awarded by AFWERX, funds the deployment of a human performance and coaching platform to prevent burnout in frontline medical teams. Arena Strive provide BAMC employees with tools, coaching, and data insights to manage stress, while BAMC leadership get access to population-level wellness data for the first time.

“BAMC is the marquee facility within the DoD’s massive health system , and we thrilled to bring Strive to such a prestigious institution” said Brian Ferguson, CEO at Arena Labs. “Arena Labs was founded to impact the ‘service archetypes’ of society, and we are grateful for our second contract with the Department of Defense to further develop our platform.”

Arena Labs looks forward to leveraging this opportunity to demonstrate efficacy on military installations and promote adoption throughout the Department of Defense.