Igniting Change: How to Design, Build and Grow a Program Dramatically Advancing the Practice of Lifestyle Medicine in a Large Healthcare Organization through a Physician Wellness Lens

Lifestyle medicine holds immense promise in revolutionizing our nation’s health landscape by mitigating total disease burden and substantially improving health outcomes, while driving down overall cost of care delivery. Though many healthcare industry experts recognize its potential, the fire of change has not yet spread. We saw an opportunity to identify the right kindling and ignite needed change in our large healthcare organization. In 2022, we launched the inaugural Lifestyle Medicine for Physicians program designed and led by physicians to educate and treat other physicians, leveraging the highly influential role physicians have in shaping healthcare culture and priorities. Physician voices shape operational decisions and determine how resources are used in both small and large medical organizations. From a care delivery perspective, there is strong evidence to support the fact that healthy doctors are significantly more likely to have a positive influence on the health of their patients. With this in mind, we decided to strategically engage physicians as both participants and advocates for transformative lifestyle changes. The impact has been tremendous. Our experience underscores the profound impact that targeted initiatives, fueled by strategic collaboration and passionate advocacy can have in ushering in a new era of healthcare delivery—one that prioritizes prevention, empowers individuals, and ultimately fosters healthier communities. We would like to share how we built and grew our program in a very large medical healthcare organization but also describe how our approach can be used in other settings. Through this interactive concurrent session program, we are excited to explore strategies, share practical approaches, and offer support to others who are interested in expanding lifestyle medicine in their practices, organizations and communities.