Benefits

What is wellness?

On an individual level The word “wellness” describes a dynamic process in which you strive for balance your whole life through. A lifestyle and not an end to be achieved, wellness is determined by decisions you make that affect the physical, social, spiritual, environmental, emotional and intellectual aspects of yourself. Ultimately, wellness has the capacity to raise awareness about why and how to maximize one’s overall health and personal potential.

On a larger scale Wellness is an approach to healthcare that emphasizes preventing illness and prolonging life, as opposed to a more narrowly defined focus on the treatment of disease.

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Exploring the Participatory Medicine Field

A new field has developed to encourage and support active patient involvement in all aspects of their care. Called participatory medicine, the approach aims to have patients take a more active role as well as to make healthcare more patient-centered. Finding better ways to engage patients in their healthcare is the over-riding theme.

Early research shows that participatory medicine can increase patient satisfaction, save time, reduce costs, decrease health disparities, prevent illness and provide better care. Physicians report greater satisfaction when caring for actively engaged patients, too.

The Practical PreventionSM education program is designed to encourage your patients to participate more fully in their healthcare.

Decreasing Excessive Phone Calls

A well-informed patient is a healthier patient. They will call you less often about little things they can take care of themselves. The Practical PreventionSM education program works to decrease unnecessary phone calls to your office by inspiring patients to learn more about wellness and self care. Taking steps to reduce the telephone hassle factor in your practice means you’re more accessible to your patients when they really need you.

Prevention Education for Your Patients

Team up with Practical PreventionSM to build a comprehensive prevention and wellness program for your patients. Each evidence-based educational message focuses on an important prevention and wellness topic and presents it in an engaging style. The unbiased information is free of advertising or sponsorship.

The program raises health awareness, educates patients about disease prevention and self-care, assesses health risks, and fosters wise use of healthcare. It keeps patients updated about the ill effects of poor health and the value of working successfully within the healthcare system.

Poorly motivated patients in your practice? Noncompliance is a major treatment obstacle. Only 50 percent of patients take their medications as prescribed and poor adherence results in direct and indirect healthcare costs of $177 billion annually.

Our program makes your job easier. Each education topic is designed to engage your patients’ interest and make them more receptive to participating in their own healthcare. Not surprisingly, patients are more likely to adopt healthier lifestyles when their doctors consistently provide effective communications about prevention.

Highly motivated patients in your practice? That’s great! A commitment to health improvement enables patients to live life to the fullest and maximize personal potential. Our ‘stay healthy and tuned up’ content can help your patients optimize their personal wellness plan. And practice communications containing our content can help foster a richer and deeper conversation between you and your patients.

Patient Education that Markets Your Practice

Generates word-of-mouth referrals

“I read an interesting article from my doctor. I see Dr. Tim Jones.”

Get your patients talking to friends and co-workers about articles you send to them. Word-of-mouth recommendations are some of the best referrals a doctor can receive.

The Practical PreventionSM education program gets patients talking. Each professionally written article focuses on an important prevention and wellness topic and is written in an engaging style. Providing the prevention education program tells your patients you take a proactive approach to improving their long-term health. It lets your patients know you’re always thinking about their welfare. It shows them you really CARE!

Forwards easily to coworkers and friends

Newsletters and websites are cost-effective ways to market your practice if they provide value. Our content provides the value you need to keep your patients reading your newsletters and looking forward to more. Additionally, patients can easily forward the newsletter articles to others, generating referrals to your practice.

Position Your Practice as a Medical Home

“The medical home is a place where patients feel comfortable and feel safe to talk about things and to learn.” U.S. Surgeon General and family physician Regina Benjamin, MD

A patient-centered medical home is a team-based model of care led by a personal physician who provides continuous and coordinated care throughout a patient’s lifetime to maximize health outcomes. This includes the provision of preventive services as well as treatment of acute and chronic illness.

Providing prevention services and a patient education program are steps that can help your practice position itself as a patient-centered medical home. Our patient education program, which emphasizes prevention and self-care, helps in several important ways:

The Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative says that medical homes should use information technology to facilitate patient access to health-education materials and electronic communications.
The Joint Principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home state that, in a medical home, “information technology is utilized appropriately to support optimal patient care, patient education, and enhanced communication.” The Joint Principles were agreed upon by the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Osteopathic Association.
As put forth by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the standards for a patient-centered medical home include support for patient self-care and the maximal use of email and an interactive website.
Lastly, U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD, a medical-home advocate, adds: “Clinicians should make it a priority to teach their patients about the importance of achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, becoming more physically active, selecting healthier food options and managing stress. They should provide comprehensive resources to help patients make healthy lifestyle choices.”

Reducing Healthcare Costs

It’s usually cheaper to keep patients healthy than to get them well again. Many studies over the past 20 years have documented cost savings from prevention. A few examples:

A Duke University study of 117 patients with congestive heart failure shows that intense patient education with appropriate follow-up can help reduce healthcare costs—in this case by an average of 50 percent.
Another study from Duke University shows that patient education in conjunction with a personal wellness plan is associated with decreased emergency room visits and fewer hospitalizations.
Patient education programs that foster prevention awareness generate double or triple the savings for every dollar invested annually, concludes a recent review.
A meta-analysis of worksite health promotion involving 500,000 participants indicates an average reduction in healthcare costs of 26 percent.
The U.S. Workplace Wellness Alliance reports a return on health promotion initiatives of $2 to $10 for each $1 invested.
A Trust for America’s Health study shows that, for every dollar spent on prevention education, the nation saves $5.60 in reduced healthcare costs.

How does patient education help? Researchers found that education reduces healthcare costs by fostering greater self-responsibility. Over time, continuing the learning empowers patients to make healthier lifestyle choices and participate more fully in their healthcare.