“August is Wellness Collaborative Month,” proclaimed Flagstaff Mayor, Jerry Nabours at the ribbon cutting for Summit Fitness Mountain Heart Wellness last month. Summit Fitness Mountain Heart Wellness, Flagstaff’s premier health and wellness club, is the latest extension of community based disease prevention services by business partners Michael Zervas, Managing Partner of Mountain Heart Health Services (www.MountainHeartCares.com) and Carl DeRosa, PT, PhD, Owner of DeRosa Physical Therapy (www.dptcenter.com).
“Helping healthcare organizations improve medical care, and supporting prevention and wellness initiatives has been a long time interest of both our organizations,” Zervas said.”We wanted to find a way to integrate our services, utilize technology to streamline communication among healthcare providers and provide our community with the full spectrum of care at the lowest possible price point.”
Summit Fitness Mountain Heart Wellness will work in collaboration with the Northern Arizona Wellness Collaborative (NAWC), the largest network of specialty and primary care providers working together towards health and wellness in northern Arizona. NAWC currently includes board certified specialists in interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, pulmonology, sleep medicine, physical therapy, dietitian services, orthopaedics as well as services within four major primary care practices including: Flagstaff Family Care, East Flagstaff Family Medicine, Ryan Internal Medicine and Jann Shiels Women’s Clinic.
“While exploring how to integrate our services with those already offered in the community, we were stunned at the level of expert care including multiple nationally ranked Top Doc’ s available not only through our clinical teams, but also within our local primary care offices,” Carl DeRosa, PT, PhD, Co-Owner of Summit Fitness, Mountain Heart Wellness said. ”It is rare to have this level of care available in a large city let alone a city the size of Flagstaff. We are pleased to partner with so many expert primary care providers with a shared vision for excellence in patient care and that offer the highest level of expertise to our community.”
Local primary care providers and healthcare organizations are challenged with an aging population, patients with complex diseases with multiple risk factors, too few practitioners, and having to adjust to major changes in the national healthcare system. Primary care providers serve an essential role in the early diagnosis of disease, risk assessment, long term health management and offer a distinct vantage point allowing them to oversee patients overall health and wellness. With a growing focus on providing a team based approach to practicing medicine, collaboration can bridge gaps in medical care across disciplines and improve patient outcomes.
“Together with our specialist colleagues at Northern Arizona Orthopaedics and our primary care partners, we have developed a series of preventative screening programs and wellness services to help our community decrease risk of developing diseases and conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and sleep disorders,” Dr. Kent Winkler, Medical Director of Mountain Heart Health Services said. “Because we utilize outpatient facilities and customize our wellness programs to meet the needs of both individuals and employer groups we are able to provide services at the lowest cost and the highest quality in the community.”
Research indicates that patients under the consistent care of a primary care provider have better outcomes than those without the medical oversight of a primary care provider. Primary care providers tend to encourage lifestyle coaching such as tobacco cessation, maintaining a healthy weight through exercise and frequently recommend patients participate in nutrition counseling to improve health.
“Cardiovascular disease remains the number one killer of Americans outpacing all cancers combined,” Zervas said. “Decreasing risk of developing disease has reached a critical point in our community and because early intervention is the key to long term health, the Wellness Collaborative intends to pursue new partnerships with small businesses to decrease their healthcare costs and improve overall wellness in northern Arizona. Wellness programs for the City of Flagstaff and other small employer groups have already been established through the collaborative and program expansion plans for 2014 are already underway.”
The Northern Arizona Wellness Collaborative brings together the collective expertise and resources of the northern Arizona specialist and participating primary care clinics. NAWC encourages creative solutions to meet the needs of northern Arizona communities. These collaborative solutions can address access to care, prevention and wellness, and improve continuation of care as healthcare organizations work to streamline communication and improve overall health and wellness for patients.
To learn more about the Northern Arizona Wellness Collaborative participating providers and the wellness programs currently available, please visit www.MountainHeartCares.com or call 928.226.6400.
Written by: Ande Burke, Mountain Heart Community Outreach Services