Chronic diseases are the leading drivers of the United States’ annual health care costs. Unhealthy lifestyle choices contribute to chronic diseases: poor nutrition, physical inactivity, tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke and excessive alcohol use. Despite current spend on healthcare, lifespan in the United States is decreasing along with healthspan, creating a gap. Lifestyle medicine is positioned to address these risky behaviors while meeting the Quintuple Aim - enhancing patient experience, improving population health outcomes, reducing costs of care, improving the health care provider experience, and improving health equity. The Quintuple Aim is often cited when discussing strategies to optimize health system performance. Three models can be considered in lifestyle medicine to attain these goals: referring to a lifestyle medicine provider, offering lifestyle medicine consultations or leveraging insurance carrier resources. Each model has benefits and considerations for the practitioner and the patient. In this presentation, we will focus on strategies to leverage insurance carrier resources including onsite clinics, wellness services and digital tools specifically through an integrated platform at UPMC Health Plan. Prescription for Wellness positions lifestyle medicine (treating the root cause of most chronic disease) as a primary part of treatment. By “prescribing” healthy behaviors and care engagement support during regular patient visits, providers can best improve the health of their patients and extend their influence and support outside the office where it is most needed.
Learning Objectives:
Explain how to utilize quality measures and data analytics, including lifestyle medicine vital signs, to evaluate the impact of provider-prescribed health coaching resources.
Define best practice processes to promote strategic implementation and optimization of a patient-member engagement platform that supports the provision of lifestyle medicine pillars.
Describe models to support the practice of lifestyle medicine with the goal of improving population health outcomes and addressing health care disparities.
