During the past two decades, many health care organizations in the U.S. have attempted to assemble integrated care delivery systems. For the most part, the development of these systems has been driven by hospital-based organizations. Their efforts focused on amassing an array of businesses that could form a health care continuum, then linking those businesses through clinical and operational integration. The enormous networks assembled by these organizations have not realized their full potential. The integrated care delivery systems that have achieved some levels of success are mostly those developed around a single specialty area, such as cardiology.

There is no doubt that these single specialty centers perform medical miracles on a daily basis, but quality, cost, and service forces are driving our healthcare system to embrace and promote a philosophy of prevention and early intervention, rather than continuing to simply expand the current episodic care model. The concept of integrative healthcare & fitness was developed to address this need and opportunity.

Integrative healthcare & fitness is a delivery model with roots firmly established in primary and preventive care. The focus of this model is to establish a true system that emphasizes communication and collaboration among all parties with the objective of helping each individual within the model achieve his or her optimum well-being. The model is implemented within a hub of providers who co-locate on a single campus with the spokes of care extending into the local, regional, and national communities. The model is built upon the following three basic tenets.

Each person is an individual with different needs to achieve optimum health, a stepping stone to a full and rewarding personal and professional life. Every individual should have a lifelong healthcare plan that addresses physical, mental, and spiritual needs, all of which change throughout the life continuum. Each individual will draw from a multitude of resources from virtually every area of healthcare services, including: conventional primary and specialty medical care, complementary medicine, fitness and performance training, nutritional counseling, and lifestyle and spiritual counseling services.

The provider / patient relationship is the foundation of a life care plan for every individual. It is imperative that individuals form trusting partnerships with primary and specialty care providers who serve as sources of guidance, support, and motivation, helping those individuals navigate their way through an improved healthcare experience. Through this partnership, individuals will form relationships with other healthcare providers, employing the right resources at the right time. The integrative healthcare & fitness focus is on prevention and early intervention, judicious use of resources, and individual responsibility and accountability for achieving and maintaining health.

Economic balance among the provider, the patient, and the healthcare system is achieved through co-location, collaboration, and communication developed in an environment where primary care, select specialty care and allied services come together to create synergies for success. Sharing resources and creating operational and clinical efficiencies contributes to the financial success of the integrative healthcare & fitness model. The current mainstream healthcare paradigm, which is built upon an episodic care model, may not be financially sustainable as evidenced by continuing double-digit inflation in the cost of providing healthcare benefits. Integrative healthcare & fitness creates a programmatical shift by aggressively responding to the market forces of cost, quality, and access through a realignment of provider and patient roles to achieve desired outcomes.

Integrative healthcare & fitness is a model of healthcare delivery for the future, featuring a strong focus on prevention and total well-being, individual responsibility for health, and synergies that provide superior health benefits within a successful business environment.