American College of Lifestyle Medicine Advances Health and Health Care With Strategic Priorities in 2021 and Beyond

‘. . . treating and reversing the burgeoning rise of lifestyle-related comorbid conditions is of paramount importance in COVID-19 and future infectious pandemics . . .’

What are you doing or plan to do this year to advance the field of lifestyle medicine? Will you start new training? Will you contribute to research or begin new lifestyle medicine services in your practice or organization? What is your vision and strategy for the upcoming year or years?

The chaos endured during the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic has challenged each of us at individual and professional levels far more than we could ever have imagined. Yet the pandemic has fostered an increased sense of passion and purpose to the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM), its membership, and to our field. Increasingly, statistics demonstrate that COVID-19 infection yields the gravest outcomes in individuals with lifestyle-related comorbidities. Notwithstanding the importance of physical distancing and other critical infectious disease responses, treating and reversing the burgeoning rise of lifestyle-related comorbid conditions is of paramount importance in COVID-19 and future infectious pandemics, and we as a field must increase our circle of influence.

Many organizations suffered losses in 2020, but ACLM membership, corporate and industry partnerships, staff expertise, and educational offerings all gained increased momentum. Our annual conference, “Lifestyle Medicine: Health Restored,” held virtually from October 22 to 25, 2020, reached a record number of nearly 2000 people worldwide and may have included our best conference content ever! The fact that the college has experienced enormous growth from an organization of 500 members to almost 5500 and a staff of 3 people to more than 20 in a short 5 years called for us to assess next-generation strategic priorities to advance our organization.

It was with this sense of momentum, and a continuing sense of purpose, that newly appointed and outgoing board members met, along with staff department leads, for an exceptionally productive virtual 3-year strategic planning session in November. All agreed that COVID-19 magnified many breaking points in health care delivery and amplified the vulnerable foundational health of our population, while offering acceleration in several areas of telemedicine and digital health that optimize lifestyle medicine clinical care, education, and our members’ professional lives.

Focused breakout sessions set the stage for ideation and innovation, offered new perspectives to our mission, and led to consensus in the identification of 3 overarching priorities as the playbook to guide our board of directors, our staff, and our membership engagement. These priorities build upon the successes of prior strategic priorities including education, certification, partnerships, policy advocacy, payment, and health equity and ideally position ACLM for ongoing success and impact.

The first priority of the three going forward is to define and refine optimal lifestyle medicine practice frameworks matched to effective reimbursement models. Development of best-practice pathways, proof-of-concept demonstration projects, and research pilots for key lifestyle-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes are tactics to support this priority. The changing landscape of how health care is delivered and the related need to scale lifestyle medicine frameworks and models using digital tools was identified as an additional important tactic.

A second overarching goal, and one that has long been core to ACLM’s mission, is the expansion of education. Our education department is the largest ACLM department, and through discussions, it was identified that educational offerings must expand in terms of topics and have broader reach across the entire health care ecosystem. The many channels with which education is consumed was a big topic. ACLM must stay current with advancing technological platforms, define existing and new audiences, and tailor content to reach students and practicing clinicians as well as health care and industry executives.

The third priority is for lifestyle medicine to become squarely positioned in the House of Medicine as a specialty field. Our current designation as a member of the American Medical Association (AMA) Specialty and Service Society has set the foundation for this priority. We will need to encourage dual membership in ACLM and AMA for our MD/DO members and provide steady representation with a delegate from our field to the AMA House of Delegates. Broad expansion of existing residency and fellowship sites alongside supporting curriculum is also recognized as critical to meeting this priority. As it has in the past, advocacy will be needed to close gaps in reimbursement, remove obstacles to lifestyle medicine practice, and to position lifestyle medicine practitioners and services as an essential means to address health disparities.

Carefully structuring organizational growth is strikingly similar to the method we practitioners use to approach our patients when fostering lifestyle behavior change. We elicit an overarching health vision, encourage structured smart goals, and recognize the need for ongoing support to yield sustainable results. ACLM next-generation strategic priorities are focused on lifestyle medicine practice frameworks, education, and specialty status along with structured initiatives to achieve sustainability.

All of you who are authors and readers of this journal are vital partners to drive our strategic priorities, and I enthusiastically look forward to your contributions to advance lifestyle medicine as the foundation of health and health care for years to come!