Health Coaching is Lifestyle Medicine that can be aimed at chronic disease management. Utilizing the services of a Health Coach as a complementary service for your healthcare patients is a good practice that can be targeted to desired outcomes for patients. Many people seek health coaching for professional help in making lifestyle changes to improve their health, but it can be a critically important tool in helping to manage chronic diseases that were created by lifestyle issues in a patient's life. Providing a referral to a Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach for your patients is an innovate way to provide continuing care.
For Doctor's Eyes: And others who are interested in the research and skills behind health coaching
Health and Wellness Coaching Research - Harvard Health Publishing
"Is there evidence that coaching works?
Coaching is effective for people managing a variety of health conditions. According to a recent study, coaching “results in clinically relevant improvements in multiple biomarker risk factors (including systolic and diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose, body weight, body mass index, waist circumference, and cardiorespiratory fitness) in diverse populations.” Coaching has also helped improve health-related quality of life and reduced hospital admissions in patients with COPD. No wonder some doctors’ offices are offering it, some insurance companies are paying for it, and private companies are even starting to offer coaching to their employees in order to lower their healthcare costs."
~Taken from 'Harvard Health Publishing' article entitled "Health coaching is effective. Should you try it?"
Health Coaching Supports Self-Efficacy: And patients want self-efficacy
In the normal course of life, people go through some very traditional stages of change, from making statements like "I won't" or "I can't", to "If I did I wouldn't do it anybody else's way", to "I might be able to do that", to "If I did it it might have a good outcome", to "I am going after this". When a diagnosis demands lifestyle changes, patients still need to go through these stages of change, to feel that they have some control of what may feel uncontrollable. And they feel more self-efficacy through these normal stages of change when supported by a Health Coach. Motivational interviewing is just one of many tools that Health Coaches use to help a patient dig deeper into overcoming resistance, and find self-empowerment to make lifestyle changes to improve their health.
Health Coaching Increases Compliance: A doctor's ideal health outcomes happen when a patient is compliant with a treatment plan
A treatment plan that is not of a patient's design can have aspects to it that feel like an impossible, even undesirable lifestyle. Many times it is a very different lifestyle for patients than the lifestyle they are used to. Assisting them with thoroughly understanding the reasons behind the plan, and partnering with them over time to develop a plan that reaches the same goals, but with their life experience and skills put into action, will achieve compliance more efficiently and thoroughly than a prescribed treatment plan and no day-to-day support. Patients will follow a plan they had a hand in making much more readily and they will stay invested in it, because they helped create it. A Health Coach is a patient's partner in success with compliance.
Health Coaching Creates the Opportunity for Additional Care
Health Coaching involves three core skills that provide an opportunity for more care for a patient. A Health Coach practices mindful listening allowing for full, non-judgmental awareness, something people rarely get in other relationships. Mindful listening senses a patient's moods, emotions, tone, body language, listening for information and patterns that lead to important insights. A Health Coach practices open-ended inquiry which elicits long, narrative answers from a patient that allow them to explore their thoughts and experiences. Allowing silence after an open-ended inquiry to occur for long enough for a patient's thoughts to fully form is another complementary practice. Health Coaches also practice perceptive refections which give the opportunity to reflect back to the patient what was heard and understood, and to offer care through thorough listening.
At Evexia, my goal is to partner with you to provide Health Coaching services to your patients who would benefit the most from lifestyle change for greater health. The National Board of Health and Wellness Coaches requires extensive training, including a fully certified Health and Wellness Coaching certification and a 6 month practicum from an accredited institution, an additional 50 hours of One-on-One Health and Wellness Coaching is required post graduate to qualify to sit for the board exam. A fully proctored exam is given as final certification to achieve Board-Certification. 36 hours of continuing education is required every three years to maintain Board-Certification. Reach out to inquire about partnering for your patient's health.
~Heidi Hall, National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach
https://members.nbhwc.org/