The measures are significant because adopting standards to
document remission and long term-progress can facilitate the
broader integration of lifestyle medicine into healthcare.
ST.
LOUIS, March 28, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- An
expert panel has published the first performance measures to
identify remission and evaluate the effectiveness of lifestyle
medicine treatments, which will allow more objective comparisons
between lifestyle behavior interventions and other non-lifestyle
treatments.
"These new performance measures defined by
the expert panel will help clinicians adopt evidence-based
lifestyle medicine by equipping them with the standards they need
to measure the success of those treatments."
The performance measures are significant because, as interest in
the field of lifestyle medicine has grown, it became clear that the
lack of standards to document remission or long-term progress
following lifestyle medicine treatment was a barrier to the
widespread integration of the practice into healthcare, said
American College of Lifestyle Medicine Founding President
John Kelly, MD, MPH, DipABLM, FACLM,
lead author of the paper published in the American Journal of
Lifestyle Medicine.
Lifestyle medicine is a medical specialty that uses therapeutic
lifestyle interventions as a primary modality to treat chronic
conditions including, but not limited to, cardiovascular diseases,
type 2 diabetes, and obesity. Lifestyle medicine-certified
clinicians are trained to apply evidence-based, whole-person,
prescriptive lifestyle change to treat and, when used intensively,
often reverse such conditions. Applying the six pillars of
lifestyle medicine—a whole-food, plant-predominant eating pattern,
physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, positive
social connections, and avoidance of risky substances—also provides
effective prevention for these conditions.
"Many clinical practice guidelines call it important to address
lifestyle behaviors in the treatment of chronic disease but,
without measurable performance standards, it was not possible to
effectively evaluate progress or long-term outcomes for patients
following lifestyle medicine interventions," Dr. Kelly said. "These
new performance measures defined by the expert panel will help
clinicians adopt evidence-based lifestyle medicine by equipping
them with the standards they need to measure the success of those
treatments."
The expert panel focused on 10 diseases, conditions or risk
factors and proposes using outcomes collected after three months of
treatment with lifestyle medicine. The conditions included cardiac
function, cardiac risk factors, cardiac medications and procedures,
patient-centered cardiac health, hypertension, type 2 diabetes and
prediabetes, metabolic syndrome, inflammatory conditions,
inflammatory condition patient-centered measures, and chronic
kidney disease. Patient-centered measures are metrics relevant to
patient experience, such as quality of life or pain
assessments.
For each disease, specific measurements were chosen to
demonstrate if lifestyle medicine should be considered effective.
For example, to measure the effectiveness of lifestyle medicine
treatment for hypertension, the panel identified systolic and
diastolic blood pressure three months after starting lifestyle
interventions to address a poor diet and lack of exercise. The
panel also considered important the use of medication or procedures
with known effects on hypertension. Ultimately, 32 performance
measures reached consensus.
The process for developing the performance measures made clear
the need for a set of standards showing the effectiveness of
lifestyle medicine, said Micaela
Karlsen, PhD, MSPH, senior director of research for the
American College of Lifestyle Medicine and last author of the
paper.
"You would not expect surgery, a procedure or medication to be
prescribed if no evidence existed that it worked," Dr. Karlsen
said. "Our hope is these standards will be widely adopted by health
practitioners."
As the field of lifestyle medicine continues to grow, the
measurements will play an important role. Future work should use
these measurements in data collection in the electronic medical
record (EMR) system to standardize evaluation of lifestyle medicine
treatment effectiveness and performance, the panel recommended.
ABOUT ACLM
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine is the nation's medical
professional society advancing lifestyle medicine as the foundation
for a redesigned, value-based and equitable healthcare delivery
system, leading to whole-person health. ACLM educates, equips,
empowers and supports its members through quality, evidence-based
education, certification and research to identify and eradicate the
root cause of chronic disease, with a clinical outcome goal of
health restoration as opposed to disease management.
Media Contact
alex branch, American College of Lifestyle Medicine,
19719835383, abranch@lifestylemedicine.org
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SOURCE American College of Lifestyle Medicine