Preventive Medicine: The Wave of the Future

Christopher Fey

Preventive medicine is a phenomenon that is rapidly gaining ground in the current healthcare landscape.

The passage of healthcare legislation in late March enshrined preventive medicine on the national scene by creating the National Prevention Strategy, National Prevention Council and requiring Medicare beneficiaries to have a personalized prevention plan, according to Christopher Fey, Chairman & CEO of U.S. Preventive Medicine, Inc.

Fey’s organization offers a service called The Prevention Plan, the first preventive health benefit available to employers and individuals with the goal of moving beyond traditional wellness to identify each individual’s top health risks and customize a plan to help to avert those risks or slow or reverse the progression of any existing disease.

So what is preventive medicine?

“Preventive medicine is a clinical discipline that is being recognized for the powerful, personalized solutions it brings to the health care crisis,” Fey says.

He explains that it is the science of keeping healthy people healthy (primary prevention), diagnosing conditions earlier through appropriate screening (secondary prevention), and treating conditions earlier with evidence-based medicine to alleviate complications and unnecessary hospitalizations (tertiary prevention).

The current U.S. healthcare system operates as a “sick-care” system built around individuals getting sick and going to see a medical professional, he says.

“Our current health care cost crisis is, in large part, the result of a health crisis from unmitigated growth in the burden of personal health risks leading to chronic illness,” Fey said. “We can move beyond our current reactive, illness-oriented sick care system and toward a more proactive, wellness-oriented health care system—built on the pillars of prevention”

It’s an area that various local and state governments, as well as other countries, are considering.

“On the state level, the state government is typically the largest employer in the state,” Fey says. “The biggest employer in America is not Wal-Mart, it’s the federal government.”

Fey said that local, state and federal agencies are looking at preventive medicine solutions to reduce overall healthcare costs for their organizations as research continues to show a demonstrated return on investment.  In a Journal of Health Affair article, the authors examined prevention and wellness programs and found a $2.50 return on every $1 invested, and substantiation that people who are healthier tend to be more productive. A recent Harvard University study found that medical costs fall by about $3.27 for every dollar spent on wellness programs and that absenteeism costs fall by about $2.73 for every dollar spent. The authors conclude that the wider adoption of such programs could benefit budgets and productivity as well as health outcomes.

U.S. Preventive Medicine is poised to meet the needs of this growing market. The Prevention Plan, provides every member with an analysis of their health risks and a customized plan of action, a confidential on-line website filled with educational tools, and personal telephone guidance for a dedicated registered nurse and other health experts. By conducting risk assessments, individuals are compelled to get the necessary screenings and tests, while also seeking the encouragement and compassion of expert health coaches. Those with existing conditions receive intensive personal attention to better manage their overall care.

“We become that almost medical home model, where we are making available content, information, encouragement, motivation and compassion,” Fey says.

For Fey and the employees of U.S. Preventive Medicine, the effort is “bigger than a business – it’s a mission.”

Fey lost his father when he was young to colon cancer, a detectable and preventable disease. Additionally, his brother-in-law suffered a stroke on a boating excursion with Fey. Both of those incidents have reinforced for Fey the necessity of forming sound prevention strategies to offset the chances of future health problems.

“There is a passion that drives everybody in our company and we are doing this because we want to try to eliminate as much as possible the tragedies that happen to people all of the time,” Fey says.

U.S. Preventive Medicine is growing quickly, looking to bring its Prevention Plan to everyone around the globe.  Numerous employers are bringing The Prevention Plan’s customized programs to their employees, including Nevada’s Public Employees Benefit Program.

“The Prevention Plan could be the biggest innovation in health care in the last 30 years,” Gov. Tommy Thompson, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, says.

“This type of comprehensive prevention strategy is not only proven, it is the only sustainable solution to relieve the economic and social burden of chronic illnesses at the heart of our health care crisis,” Fey says.

Posted by Jim Garrettson on Tuesday, July 6th, 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry