The Albany Gazette - KeepWOL Announces Expansion Into Healthcare Following Clinical Collaboration With Academic Medical Center

SCOTTSDALE, AZ / ACCESS Newswire / April 29, 2026 / KeepWOL, an AI-powered team effectiveness platform that helps organizations build belonging and measure team performance, today announced its formal expansion into the healthcare market following a year-long collaboration with a large academic medical center. The platform was deployed in partnership with physician leadership to support an initiative to strengthen belonging and team performance across clinical teams.

The expansion comes at a critical moment for the U.S. healthcare system, which faces a projected shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. Workforce challenges driven by burnout, professional isolation, and declining psychological safety are pushing healthcare leaders to explore new approaches to supporting physicians and care teams.

"Healthcare is a service industry defined by human connection, and yet the people at the center of that connection are increasingly isolated, overwhelmed, and underserved," said Lauren Fitzpatrick Shanks, CEO and Founder of KeepWOL. "KeepWOL is designed to help care for the people who care for others, bringing structure, measurability, and consistency to how teams connect, reflect, and improve together."

KeepWOL's expansion into healthcare is grounded in its work alongside physician leadership within a large top-ranked academic medical center, where structured team development and well-being sessions were integrated into existing leadership programming. The initiative created consistent opportunities for physicians and care teams to engage in facilitated dialogue, reflect on shared challenges, and identify actionable ways to strengthen collaboration.

During the first year of the initiative, participants reported meaningful improvements across several key areas, including job satisfaction, team dynamics, engagement, innovation, psychological safety, and cultural intelligence. The work continues to generate insights into how structured approaches to belonging and team development can support stronger connections and collaboration in complex clinical environments.

As the initiative progressed, participation expanded across multiple clinical teams and a broad multidisciplinary workforce, reflecting growing interest in creating more intentional, scalable approaches to supporting connection across care environments. The program now operates in both in-person and hybrid formats, enabling sustained engagement across diverse teams and schedules.

"Belonging and well-being aren't soft concepts in healthcare; they directly shape how teams function and how patients are cared for," said Dr. Nathan Delafield, MD, FACP, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Associate Chair of Belonging. "KeepWOL is more than a tool for strengthening belonging; it gives us an unprecedented ability to measure and intentionally build cultures where people feel connected, valued, and empowered to thrive."

KeepWOL enters healthcare at a pivotal cultural inflection point. Academic medical centers and health systems are actively creating dedicated physician leadership roles, such as "Chairman of Belonging" and "Chief of Well-Being," signaling an industry-wide recognition that workforce retention and whole-person well-being cannot be solved by compensation or HR policy changes alone. These physician leaders are being handed accountability without the tools, data, or infrastructure to drive sustainable change.

KeepWOL is purpose-built to support those leaders. Unlike traditional engagement surveys or one-time wellness workshops, the platform delivers continuous, structured team experiences that surface real-time insights across six measurable performance areas: team dynamics, engagement, psychological safety, innovation, cultural intelligence, and job satisfaction.

The platform's AI-powered library builder enables organizations to tailor each session to specific needs, from onboarding new staff to navigating conflict resolution. AI-generated action plans provide clear, trackable next steps that are prioritized directly by team members through a built-in upvoting system, ensuring that improvement efforts reflect the team's voices and needs.

"We are seeing that when physicians and care teams are given structured space to connect and reflect, it creates new opportunities for collaboration that are difficult to achieve in traditional clinical environments," added Fitzpatrick Shanks. "This is about giving healthcare leaders a practical, measurable way to strengthen the human dynamics that drive performance."

Healthcare organizations looking to reduce burnout, strengthen belonging, and build measurable team performance can learn more at: www.keepwol.com/healthcare

About KeepWOL

KeepWOL (Keep Wondering Out Loud) is an AI-powered team effectiveness platform that helps healthcare and academic organizations build the relational capital necessary to deliver optimized results. Through structured interactive experiences, real-time people analytics, and dynamic AI-generated action plans, KeepWOL gives leaders at every level visibility into how their teams are functioning and a clear path to improving them.

The platform measures performance across six key areas: team dynamics, engagement, psychological safety, innovation, cultural intelligence, and job satisfaction. Learn more at www.keepwol.com

MEDIA CONTACT: Nina Pfister, MAG PR at [email protected]

SOURCE: KeepWOL

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(N.Miller--TAG)