In "A Moment of Silence for Dr. Jack LaLanne," published in the Feb. 26, 2011 issue, you were asked to share with patients Jack's incredible life and the power of true health and remind patients that his legacy will undoubtedly influence millions for generations to come. Our profession can do much more than just remind patients of Jack's life by supporting his Call-to-Activity (www.call-to-activity.com).
The Call-to-Activity video that can be viewed on the site is Jack's passionate and patriotic plea for older adults to answer the call "To Save America's Health." Jack predicted our health care crisis more than 50 years ago. Stay Fit Seniors, www.stayfitseniors.com, is the founding sponsor of this national initiative for all ages to participate in all forms of physical activity.
We all know our country is fighting for its economic life as we face monumental increases in health care costs aggravated by obesity and chronic illness. Systemic reform and governmental policy will never reduce health care dependency. However, physical activity interventions for the inactive and deconditioned will.
You can position yourself as a wellness leader in your community by sharing this message with your patients. The government, insurance carriers, physicians and even mass media all know physical activity is the gateway to wellness. If we regularly discuss physical activity through Jack's message, we will help lead the way as wellness experts. You and your patients can get involved on the Call-to-Activity Facebook page at http://on.fb.me/fl0E25. Have them record their physical activities there on a regular basis and enjoy the discussion.
As chiropractors, there are many things we can do, such as holding a wellness day at the office to discuss physical activity and chiropractic care. Organize a walk in Jack's honor and end up at your office. These are just two of many ways to spread Jack's message in your practice.
We all know exercise helps adjustments hold longer by stabilizing the spine. Dr. LaLanne knew it, too. So why not support the Call-to-Activity, keeping Jack's legacy and will to win alive?
The Call-to-Activity couldn't come at a more needed time; health care costs are crushing the economy and American productivity continues to decline due to poor health and high rates of obesity. Today's health care costs already consume 18 percent of the nation's GDP while the World Health Organization rates U.S. health at 37th among industrialized countries. Not a very good ROI considering most of the countries that are ahead of us spend far less than we do on health care.
As the health care industry, government and corporate America try to figure out how to deliver, manage and administer wellness services, many opportunities are being created to participate in the growing wellness industry. The most important and most misunderstood component of the wellness health model is physical activity intervention programming.
The health benefits and costs savings that result from participation in regular physical activity have been well-documented, so much so that the health care industry knows that for every dollar invested in providing physical activity programming, $5.60 in future health care costs are saved – almost a 6:1 ROI.
Many experts consider participation in physical activity singularly effective in preventing most chronic conditions, savings millions of lives and the economy billions of dollars. The Exercise Is Medicine initiative by the American College of Sports Medicine and Web portals like WebMD demonstrate the medical movement toward promoting wellness and physical activity.
The challenge has been for the wellness industry to figure out who is creating the programming, how do we get the people who need it access, who is going to manage and administer it, and how are we going to pay for it? When there are 240 million inactive people in the U.S .and two of every three border on obesity or are obese, answering these questions seems daunting.
To ensure the consistency of delivery and quality of the programming and to provide access for these communities, wellness resource networks (WRNs) are being created to connect populations and payors with host locations that provide the same physical activity intervention programming. Industry leaders claim that 50,000 host locations will be needed over the next five years to meet demand.
Payors such as health plans, employers and governments contract with the WRN to offer to their populations access to host locations that provide physical activity programs, characterized by age-band, specific condition and disease state. Health plans and other sponsors are paying for physical activity programming specific to age bands such as seniors, boomers and kids, specific conditions like obesity, and disease states such as diabetes and heart disease.
Wellness seekers interested in physical activity are sent to these host locations by the WRN to enroll in an appropriate physical activity program. Doctors and other health care providers prescribe physical activity programs to patients based on specific disease states or conditions.
Chiropractic offices are being considered by WRNs as host locations to provide physical activity programming. The companies that are building WRNs view chiropractic offices as a safe clinical environment that is attractive to the wellness seeker.
This an opportunity for chiropractors to become a significant part of the growing wellness industry a health care model more suited to the practice of chiropractic. The profession has experienced for years the inherent difficulties in trying to incorporate chiropractic services into a disease care model.
Chiropractors can build a wellness culture in their office with chiropractic care and physical activity as the foundation. In so doing, chiropractic can finally operate within a health care model that is congruent to its own philosophy and practice.
Wellness seekers finding access to physical activity programming in chiropractic offices will now have the opportunity to learn about the preventative and wellness benefits of chiropractic care. How many people do you think could go regularly to a chiropractic office to exercise and not eventually have their spine checked?
The future of health care is in the quality and delivery of wellness and prevention programs. For chiropractors to take a leadership role in the shift from disease care to wellness care, the profession will have to provide a variety of wellness services to their communities to build the wellness culture necessary to reverse skyrocketing health care costs and declining American productivity.
Jack LaLanne knew 50 years ago that regular physical activity was the cornerstone to a long, healthy life. The wellness industry is starting to catch on. Through initiatives like Jack's Call-to-Activity to raise awareness about the importance of regular physical activity and the building of Wellness Resource Networks to deliver quality programming to the populations who need it, America can work her way out of this health care economic crisis one person at a time, one exercise session at a time.
We urge chiropractors to find out about wellness resource networks being built in your area and support Jack LaLanne's Call-to-Activity to Save America's Health.
When I graduated from chiropractic college in 1981 and started practice, I heard it all, and very little was positive. “You are a quack; you do not know what a subluxation is; you couldn’t get into a real health care program, so you chose the one that is slightly above a mail-order degree; you have no proof that chiropractic works; Are you really licensed?”, and so much more.
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