Partners in Care Foundation and California Association of Physician Groups Collaborate to Transform Healthcare for Older Adults with Chronic Conditions.

SAN FERNANDO, Calif. -- Partners in Care Foundation, the program office for California's evidence-based health promotion efforts, will join forces with the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG), the nation's largest professional organization representing physician groups, to expand the Healthier Living program which provides innovative self-management methods for older adults with chronic conditions.

The Healthier Living Program was developed by Dr. Kate Lorig and her colleagues at Stanford University in response to the fact that people are living longer with chronic diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease. An evidence-based program, Healthier Living has been extensively researched and proven to have significant benefits for seniors including improved health, increased independence, improved communication with physicians and fewer visits to physicians and hospitals.

"The goal of Healthier Living is to offer older Americans, who often suffer chronic health conditions, an opportunity to take control of their health through behavior changes that have proven effective in reducing the effects of disease and disability," said Jennifer Wieckowski, Partners in Care Program Administrator for the State Evidence-Based Initiative, and the Partners in Care California Health Innovation Center (CHIC) dedicated to programs for "Aging Well." "Unfortunately, many people with chronic conditions feel they lack the skills to effectively manage their illness. Healthier Living is designed to educate and support older adults to make behavior changes so they can lead more active and satisfying lives."

Healthier Living consists of a series of six 2.5-hour workshops presented over six weeks by two trained leaders, one or both of whom have a chronic disease themselves. The highly scripted program deals with the issues that face everyone living with an ongoing health condition. These include managing medications, dealing with isolation and depression, starting an exercise program, meeting goals and communicating better with physicians.

"Healthier Living and other evidence-based health promotion programs are transforming the way that health is managed. CAPG's participation in this initiative adds the primary care referral component to the mix - a cutting edge opportunity for health promotion, prevention, early intervention and self management to set a new standard of practice," said Don Crane, President and CEO of CAPG. "Given that the US population age 65 and older is expected to more than double to 72 million by 2030, expanding the reach of evidence based programs like Healthier Living to promote self care also makes good clinical and economic sense."

The three-year initiative will launch by first creating five "mini networks" comprised of California community college older adult programs, physician groups and county public health departments to identify, refer and enroll older Californians into the workshops. The goal is to enroll 9,525 older Californians in Healthier Living by 2011.

"As we improve the way health care is delivered, helping people stay healthy by focusing on prevention, catching illnesses early and minimizing complicating conditions that can become life threatening, will enable us to achieve our fundamental goals - to ensure quality of life while reducing the cost burden on the delivery system," noted W. June Simmons, President and CEO of Partners in Care Foundation. "The Healthier Living workshops provide a great resource to California's older adult population, their families, healthcare providers and communities through these evidence-based, proven methods."

Under funding awarded to California and seven other states by the National Council on Aging and Atlantic Philanthropies, this initiative will support collaborative efforts between Partners in Care, CAPG, California Departments of Aging and Public Health, Kaiser Permanente and other collaborative community partners to identify and recruit leading physician groups to expand the reach of Healthier Living to make it available to 60% of older Californians.

The CAPG collaboration will serve to identify best practices for physician referrals to three non-credit community-based courses and prepare tools for future expansion including physician group readiness assessment, patient screening and referral criteria, education tools for office/clinical staff, referral forms and fax back forms for community based organizations. CAPG plans to educate large groups of physicians about Healthier Living through statewide, regional and medical policy meetings, e-mail updates to medical directors, and newsletter/magazine articles, and that once physicians begin making Healthier Living referrals for their managed care patients, it could become a general standard of practice.

Kaiser Permanente has successful experience with physician referrals to the Healthier Living program since 1997, and what Kaiser Permanente has learned will be adapted and then applied by CAPG members in more open systems. At least one physician group (Healthcare Partners in Los Angeles) will adopt the Healthier Living internally by becoming licensed by Stanford University and hosting Healthier Living on-site, mirroring the Kaiser Permanente model.

Partners in Care Foundation is a San Fernando, California-based non-profit healthcare and social services organization dedicated to changing the shape of healthcare. In collaboration with its extensive network of community-based and healthcare organizations, funders, and supporters, Partners in Care initiates, develops, and tests innovative new models of care in aging well, access to care, end-of-life care and health promotion and disease interventions for diverse communities and populations.

The California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) is a professional association committed to improving health care for Californians. Based in Los Angeles and Sacramento, California, CAPG membership is comprised of over 150 of California's leading physician groups that employ or contract with approximately 59,000 physicians who provide health care services to more than 15 million Californians - more than 50% of California's health care.