A Compelling Health Promoting Primary Care Clinic Using a Settings-Based Approach: A Demonstration Project

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Promotion
• Primary Care Medicine

Background:

• The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986) advocated for health-promoting health services.
• Despite initiatives like the Patient-Centered Medical Home and Triple Aim, healthcare environments remain largely unreoriented towards health promotion.
• A gap exists in transforming healthcare settings to actively foster public health.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a settings-based approach for reorienting a primary care clinic towards health promotion.
• To illustrate the implementation of health-promoting policies, systems, and environmental strategies within a diverse patient population.
• To highlight the role of lifestyle medicine in this transformation.

Main Methods:

• A settings-based approach was employed to redesign clinic operations.
• Health-promoting policies, systems, and environmental strategies were developed and implemented.
• Lifestyle medicine was integrated as a core component of the intervention.

Main Results:

• The primary care clinic successfully reoriented its services towards health promotion.
• A diverse patient population was served through these new strategies.
• The integration of lifestyle medicine proved foundational to the approach.

Conclusions:

• A settings-based approach, integrating lifestyle medicine, can effectively transform primary care into a health-promoting service.
• This model offers a replicable strategy for enhancing public health within clinical settings.
• Reorienting healthcare environments is crucial for advancing health promotion goals.