Exercise as a Vital Sign : Details on implementation in primary AND specialty care

Getting our staff to ask about Exercise was definitely a struggle in the beginning.  Not because they didn’t think it was the right thing to do or because it was hard to document in our EHR, but because many of them were not exercising themselves.

The quote above is from a series of blog posts that my twitter friend ( and amazing Proactive Care manager for Kaiser Permanente Southern California ) Kristen Andrews ( @ldsklandrews ) put up in response to a tweet request of mine to tell the world how exercise as a vital sign really works in practice.

From reading the posts, I can tell they’ve learned a lot about how to do this well, in primary care and specialty care. And you’ll be able to tell that they want to share what they’ve learned, so that when you do this, you won’t have to learn the same lessons from experience. You can learn different ones and share those back, of course.

Thanks, Kristen, and feel free to follow/comment/tweet her with your questions.

 

5 Comments

I love the possibilities of improving lives by encouraging better health through exercise.  Thanks @Tedeytan for partnering to share our story and where we can, our learnings and successes.

Most of us ( I know I do) need lots of encouragement to stay on the track with exercise. Dr. Rooks asks her patients to bring their sneakers to their appointments. It’s a great way to frame the discussion on getting more physical activity. Great to have your doc champion your health and to be in a work place that supports wellness too. Here’s the link http://youtu.be/QRgOo4GaW3E

@katellington I love the idea of encouraging patients to bring their sneakers. Sounds like the “Walk With a Doc” program we have here in SCAL. Thanks for sharing the video link as well.

Ted Eytan, MD