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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

St Joseph Health and Community Well Being

Elizabeth Glen-Bottari and Maracie Wilson from St. Joseph Health System in California share input about upcoming public policy in California focussed on how community well being can be a transformational healthcare strategy.

Elizabeth proposes that when under economic stresses, the state or province can turn to personal health as it is far more cost effective than healthcare. People need to feel they have a personal responsibility to engage in managing their personal health. Healthy people should remain healthy, people who are not healthy should not get sicker. Responsibility, prevention, early detection, and easy access and understanding of healthcare tools.

Wellness and health improvement is delivered via virtual Telehealth, and community care, integrated medical fitness, and worksite health promotion.

The theory is that the are three spheres of influence for wellness and health improvement. The first is individual, with wellness and integrated medical fitness, and virtual medicine. The next sphere is group health, with population health management, worksite health promotion, and disease management. At the highest level is population, with healthiest communities and access to care and safe environments.

Practical examples are fun challenges such as pedometer individual, family, and community challenges and healthy eating examples.

And integrated medical fitness centre is a comprehensive plan available in three different scales. These sites focus on prevention, rehab, and and fitness services via staff and equipment that provide integrated health therapies to meet the needs of the community, regardless of their current health state. They are not limited to the buildings, but get out into the schools and community centers to share these same practices and wisdom in commitment to health.

Every strategic plan and action has a return on mission as well as return on investment to ensure that the goals with respect to improving the quality of life for the community are also a focus along with ensuring economic responsibility.

Queen of the Valley Wellness Centre is the case study in Napa.

Quality of life, functional capacity, morbidity and mortality, health care utilization, revenue enhancement, and cost avoidance are all metrics tracked for success.

Cisco and ATT are both partners in their telemedicine program.


Maracie spoke about the worksite health promotion, inspired by Dr. D. Eddington's research form enhancing employee health. The mission is considered as a serious economic strategy, to avoid $20M in employee health benefit usage.

The primary focus is a web based health education, coaching, incentives, activity tracking, health risk assessments, and biometric screening. The approach is carrot and stick, where there are some prizes and rewards, but mostly there are higher health premiums for those who do not contribute. This model is more focussed on a US style health system, but can be adopted to a Canadian strategy.









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Location:Kelowna, BC

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