"Healthier Me" Program Makes a Difference

with Raymond Zastrow, M.D., Family Practice, Advanced Healthcare

Posted: June 1, 2004

It seems that each day, newspaper headlines shout out the name of a new drug or technology that has been developed to help get us better or keep us well.

But even as we race further into the new millennia armed with the most expensive state-of-the-art medical equipment, research is showing that much of what we need to stay healthy has little to do with computers, lasers and MRIs. Perhaps more than we ever realized, many of the keys to good health can be directly attributed to lifestyle.

Raymond Zastrow, M.D., Family Practitioner with Advanced Healthcare "My wife and I are participating, and we try to lead by example."

Advanced Healthcare's new Healthier Me program seeks to help patients lead healthier lives through prevention of disease.

Healthier Me program
Raymond Zastrow, M.D., a family practice physician with Advanced Healthcare, said the program, which any patient can participate in, has three parts.

First, it focuses on helping patients obtain a healthy lifestyle through such things as diet, exercise and cessation of smoking. Secondly, it helps patients identify diseases in their earliest stages with appropriate screening. Finally, Healthier Me seeks to minimize the damages done by a disease that is already present.

"The most challenging part of a physician's job is that many times, the health of a patient is predicated on behavioral change," Dr. Zastrow said. He pointed to diabetes, heart disease and obesity as just three examples of diseases that can often be prevented with proper nutrition and exercise.

Dr. Zastrow noted that often, patients are eager to take a pill or have a procedure done to "fix" their problem, but are less willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary to prevent the problem from recurring in the future.

He believes the Healthier Me program, which physicians will participate in, will help give reluctant exercisers and dieters the nudge they need to begin planning for a healthier future.

"My wife and I are participating, and we try to lead by example," he said. "We are not asking people to become super-athletes, but they should be exercising each day." He and his wife power-walk to keep fit.

Dr. Zastrow, who takes a particular interest in cholesterol screening, said that in his experience, people respond well to numbers they are able to see and understand. Healthier Me will seek to give patients the information they need for good prevention.

Many healthy benefits
Vicki Fehrenbach, Advanced Healthcare's wellness and chronic disease program coordinator, said the Healthier Me program is being developed as much for Advanced Healthcare's staff as it is for its patients and the community as a whole.

"First of all, we want to impact our own employees. We want our physicians, nurses and all of our employees to be more healthy," she said. "A healthier staff will lead to more productivity, less absenteeism and reduced healthcare costs."

Fehrenbach said that staff response to the program's initiation has been "extremely positive." She believes that as patient-care staff find personal success in the program, they will be better able to mentor patients who participate in Healthier Me

Along with the diet and exercise piece, physicians will have access to health-risk assessment tools. Using these tools, they will be better able to head off such diseases as obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

"Physicians will be able to evaluate patients and recommend lifestyle changes to reduce the risk for these diseases," Fehrenbach said.

Already the program has generated interest among companies who want their employees to be involved in the Healthier Me program. While good health is always desirable, corporations are also realizing it is much less expensive to prevent a disease than to treat a disease.

The Healthier Me program will promote an educational component as it further develops, Fehrenbach said.

"Education is huge for people," she said. "Education can offer them practical ways to change their lifestyle. Most of this isn't complex - it can be as simple as going for a walk every day and choosing a salad over a cheeseburger for lunch. We need to help people to understand that many diseases are preventable."

For more information about the Healthier Me program, please contact the 24-hour Advanced Healthline at (262) 512-2880 or (888) 709-2080.

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