Health Coaching Recommendations

Health coaching will be key in the near future to improving public health and reducing health care costs, according to speakers at the 4th Annual National Symposium: Predictive Health.

ZDNet Health Care’s Dana Blankenhorn reports on some of the health coaching recommendations that came out of the symposium.

• Health coaching has greatest long-term results when given to youth in their early 20s. To take one from the music industry, “What you listen to at 20 is what you will listen to at 60."
  

• Look at the patient’s data. We often think coaching is powerful because it has a one-on-one human touch, but the more facts a wellness coach has, the more successful she will be.
  

• Know who your friends are when attempting to establish health coaching at hospitals and other organizations. Health coaching saves money. Attempts to institute coaching through hospitals have largely failed, according to Ralph Snyderman, former Duke CEO now leading a start-up called Proventys, because coaching keeps money “out of someone’s pocket."
  

What does this mean for those interested in health coaching on the corporate or institutional level?

• Institute annual wellness visits for every member of the covered family.
  
• Respect data. Put the time into building out each person’s Personal Health Record.
  
• Be clear about money saved, and who will lose out. Be politically astute.