Lifestyle Medicine Supports Better Health Outcomes and Lower Costs

When Dr. Kiona Coleman, a family medicine physician at CenterWell, noticed her own health struggles – not sleeping well, grabbing food on the go, not having time for exercise – reflected in her patients, she considered what she and the collaborative healthcare teams at CenterWell could do to help.  

“I wondered why we weren’t providing more education for our patients and began talking to my colleagues about it,” said Dr. Coleman. “I truly felt that there had to be little things we could do to help our patients.” That’s what put Dr. Coleman on the path to instituting lifestyle medicine practices.

Evidence-based lifestyle interventions
Lifestyle medicine is a specialized approach to care that uses evidence-based, therapeutic interventions, including a diet rich in plant-based whole foods, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances and positive social connections, to treat common chronic conditions. Scientific data show these lifestyle medicine interventions improve blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, body weight, cholesterol levels, mental health, and colon, esophageal and breast cancer.

Empowered patients
Emphasizing empathy and a non-judgmental approach during her patient visit, Dr. Coleman took time to understand her patients’ unique motivations to implementing lifestyle changes. She started small and focused on one goal per visit.

“I may ask, ‘How are you feeling about your blood pressure? Do you think it should be better controlled?’ or ‘Have you thought about losing weight? Do you want to do that?’,” said Dr. Coleman. “Then I empower them to bring their ideas about changes they can make before I inundate them with mine.”

Improved health outcomes
Lifestyle medicine directly aligns with the goals of value-based care in that both are focused on improving patient outcomes. Clinicians in value-based care arrangements are directly incentivized to improve quality and health outcomes and may have more time and resources to address each patient’s individual needs. In the Lifestyle Heart Trial intensive lifestyle changes helped reverse blockages of the arteries of the heart (atherosclerosis) after one and five years and 80% of patients with heart disease were able to avoid heart bypass surgery. Lifestyle medicine interventions also outperformed metformin for patients with diabetes in the Diabetes Prevention Program clinical trial.

Engaged healthcare teams
In December 2022, Humana committed to training its associates in lifestyle medicine interventions, including clinicians across its network of CenterWell and Conviva clinics. As of August 2023, approximately 700 Humana associates completed the 5.5 hours of free Continuing Education (CME/CE) training through that partnership with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

Dr. Coleman witnessed greater patient success when medical assistants and front desk staff were engaged. “I worked with our full staff at my previous practice to begin incorporating personal health goals into our work to help us relate to our patients and to keep health top of mind for our staff,” said Dr. Coleman. “In my current practice, I work with the medical assistant and referral specialist on this, and they’re excited as well. They’re invested and our patients feel it too.”

Lifestyle medicine in the community
Currently, Humana is beginning to work with some of its CenterWell and Conviva primary care clinics to explore further training and implementation of lifestyle medicine interventions. Some centers are holding monthly community events around healthy eating, stress management and physical activity. Others are improving patient education using handouts co-branded by ACLM and Humana to reinforce the take-home concepts. The ultimate goal is to infuse lifestyle medicine into care plans and help patients and members live healthier lives.