Novel Lifestyle Medicine Virtual Referral Clinic: A Quality Improvement Initiative to Increase Value-Based Care

Abstract

Lifestyle education is a key component of healthcare, particularly primary care. Multiple studies have shown that dedicated patient education on lifestyle topics, in addition to medication management, creates the most positive outcomes. Improving knowledge on health topics is critical for eliciting positive change in health behaviors. However, education takes time, and access to focused education outside of the office visit can be a challenge. We discuss here a quality improvement initiative to increase value-based care by utilizing telehealth to improve access to Lifestyle Medicine education during the COVID-19 pandemic. We focused on 4 primary objectives including creating a Lifestyle Medicine Virtual Referral Clinic (LMVRC) embedded within our Family Medicine Residency, determining payor mix of referred patients, utilizing a telehealth platform to provide lifestyle medicine education, and finally determining the influence of our services on patient’s perceived health. There were many key findings in the development, implementation, and evaluation of the LMVRC that could serve to assist others and our clinic in further development of lifestyle medicine education in the primary care setting. In our experience, a LMVRC embedded in a primary care setting proved to be an effective approach to provide access for patients and advancing value-based care.