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HEALTH CARE
Increasingly popular, coaches help design wellness game plans By AMY ANN STOESSEL astoessel@crain.com
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nce a more niche specialty, health coaches are starting to pop up everywhere from institutional settings to workplaces and community programs as rising health care costs are putting an increased focus on proactive and preventive medicine. In a nutshell, coaches collaborate with patients to create personalized health plans and work with them to reach their goals. They are used for any number of purposes, from the management of a chronic condition to a desire for improved overall health or as a way to quit smoking. “It really is making sure the individual is the center point of their own health care team,” said Dr. Karen Lawson, director of the University of Minnesota’s health coaching track, a two-year, 360-hour graduate-level program. “It’s really putting the person back in the driver’s seat. … The health coach is really designed to be a partner.” In Northeast Ohio, employers, health care providers and insurers increasingly seem to be getting on board with the concept, with many saying it’s a field growing in both popularity and potential. The Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute, for one, within the past year added coaching to its general lifestyle management programs, said Emily Fox, administrator for the Center for Lifestyle Medicine. Three coaches now are available as part of the general menu of services. “The No. 1 key is really being able to build relationships with the patient,” she said. “It really is based on helping the patient come to the conclusion of what they have to do.”
Medicare billions. The pilot project is aimed at those hospitalized for several select diagnoses, including pneumonia and heart failure. Melissa Pessefall, a registered nurse with the agency, said the coaching process is really centered on the patient’s focus. Coaches visit with patients in the hospital, track their discharge and follow up at home. This isn’t the senior services agency’s first foray into transition coaching. It also collaborates with SummaCare insurance, and it conducted a small independent demonstration project that netted a
reduction in hospital readmission rates from the high teens/low 20s to about 2%. Both Mr. Cook and Ms. Pessefall stressed that coaching — while potentially having a positive effect on the numbers side of health care — is about empowering the patient. “We try to come together with a mutual health goal,” Ms. Pessefall said. “If I don’t get their buy-in, it doesn’t matter.”
The right direction Janine E. Janosky, who leads the Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron’s Center for Clinical and
Community Health Improvement, said the projection is that there is going to be a strong need for health coaches in the future. Dr. Janosky — who is heading the ABIA’s Accountable Care Community initiative, a new effort to promote a healthier community and identify system gaps — has seen the effectiveness of coaching over the past year through a diabetes management program. There have been positive results seen among the participants including psychological, behavioral and body changes. “We’ve found them very successful,” she said.
Gloria Treister, meanwhile, is not surprised to see the shift in focus toward the use of health coaches. Her business, Wellness Evolution in Beachwood, has been operating in the customized care sphere since 2004, utilizing a range of practitioners, including a coach, naturopathic doctors and acupuncturists. “I think people in the general public are getting fed up with having drugs shoved down their throats,” said. “I think the nicest thing about having a health coach is that they can put people in the right direction.” ■
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Bottom-line results Personal attention aside, coaching programs often are instituted with money matters in mind. Amy French, director of marketing and human resources at OEConnection in Richfield, said coaching was a natural fit with the firm’s wellness culture, but there were potential benefits to the company’s bottom line as well. Coaches, provided through ERC Health, visit OEConnection twice a month, and in 2011 roughly 94% of OEConnection’s 200 employees participated in some sort of coaching interaction. And for those who sought help on specific issues, the results speak loud and clear: 20% increased weekly exercise habits; 72% lost weight; 63% reduced body mass index; and 67% lowered blood pressure. “It’s no secret this is dual-purposed,” Ms. French said. “All of these things are a proactive effort to keep our associates healthy and to manage health care costs.” The Uniontown-based Area Agency on Aging, which serves Portage, Stark, Summit and Wayne counties, also is aiming for measurable results from coaching. Specifically, its target is a 20% reduction in hospital readmissions. The organization recently was among those awarded a contract by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to provide coaches to patients leaving the hospital. Gary Cook, chief operating officer for the agency, said avoidable hospital readmissions cost
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