Guest post from Dr. Val Jones, M.D.

The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease has taught me a lot about healthcare’s current financial burden. They estimate that 75% of our healthcare dollars are spent on chronic disease management, and that 80% of those diseases are preventable with lifestyle interventions. These numbers are staggering in both their sheer size and personal implications. To put it another way, if we pulled together as a nation to truly become a “wellness culture” we could reduce healthcare costs by 60%. Can you think of any other intervention with so large a potential impact on health costs in America?

Of course, modifying behavior is the holy grail of medicine. We physicians wish that our patients would optimize their diet and exercise choices and become fully compliant partners in managing their chronic diseases. Unfortunately, fifty percent of patients forget to take their meds and over 30 percent don’t refill their prescriptions. Twenty percent say they don’t take the full course of treatment and fifty percent of patients don’t take drugs as directed. What’s a doc to do?

I decided that if I’m going to expect patients to “comply” with healthy living principles and/or medical treatments, that I should model that for them first. So I created an online weight loss group to encourage people to join me in my quest to lose weight, eat well, and exercise regularly. Nearly 3,300 individuals have joined so far, and we have created a vibrant discussion group of enthusiastic and supportive people (mostly women as it turns out). The group is a place to call home – to be honest about your struggles, to track your progress, and get some expert support along the way.

If every physician in America led an online group of only 300 people (or if 1 in 10 physicians led a group my size), every American could be in an expert-led healthy living program. And that’s excluding all the other terrific healthcare providers (such as nurses, nutritionists, and dieticians) who could easily pitch in.

Now, obviously online groups won’t result in 100% behavior change rates. But I believe that every little bit helps, and marrying innovative social networking technology with compassionate experts – who try to lead by example – could be a meaningful tool for change. I’m going to keep doing my part, and hope that others will follow suit. This is how I plan to be a “disruptive woman in healthcare.”

Dr. Val Jones, M.D., is the President and CEO of Better Health, PLLC. Most recently she was the Senior Medical Director of Revolution Health, a consumer health portal with over 120 million page views per month in its network. Prior to her work with Revolution Health, Dr. Jones served as the founding editor of Clinical Nutrition & Obesity, a peer-reviewed e-section of the online Medscape medical journal.

Related posts:

1. Violent Death: Preventing Chronic Disease Isn’t Enough
2. Fight Chronic Disease – by Voting Like Your Health Depends On It
3. Fight Chronic Disease – by Voting Like Your Health Depends On It
4. The New Kid on the Online-Healthcare-Discussion-Community Block
5. Run for Cover: Young Adults with Chronic Medical Conditions & Disabilities

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Guest Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.