Taking the Best Ideas from Commercial and Medical Fitness to Impact Population Health [Podcast Series]
[:55] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Jeff Jeran
Jeff Jeran is Senior Director at Power Wellness.
He has been working in the medical fitness space for about 20 years and currently oversees three centers in three states.
[1:14] Medical fitness calling
“What I kind of sometimes talk about is I found my purpose in medical fitness. You know, I may not be able to help my father anymore, but what I find is I'm able to help other people's mothers and fathers continue their life and improve their life, and really have been able to create something really special.”
[5:04] Medical fitness reaching the 80%
“It's the 80% of the population that didn't exercise, that's what medical fitness attracts. And I think that's why I fell in love with it, because, like I said, I was able to take care of other people's parents and get them to improve their life and increase their lifespan.”
[7:43] Medical and commercial fitness
“I don't like putting things in labels. Medical fitness, commercial fitness. Fitness is fitness. It's just taking care of different types of clients, and how do we work with those individuals?”
[10:59] Mobile app connecting members and physicians
“So this new product that we've launched, it's our mobile app that all of our members are able to take advantage of and monitor their health, communicate with their physicians. It's a nice way to kind of have a product that commercial facilities then could take advantage of and become medically based without doing everything a medical fitness center does.”
[13:24] Integrating into the electronic medical record
“They've figured out a way to do this and package it to where they can make it affordable for other centers to be able to offer this without being a managed facility.”
[16:52] Expanding access to medical fitness
“For the first five, six years of the center, individuals thought you had to be a sick individual to come and use the hospital wellness center, and they didn't realize it's just a fitness center, just with a few different things and ways that we do things, and so it was just educating the population on that aspect.”
[19:36] Finding a fitness center that meets your needs
“But what we tell folks is it's you got to go where you're going to be able to, one, if you afford it, and two, where you feel safe, because where you feel safe and you feel part of a community, it's going to help you stay in your exercise routine and continue to make it a habit.”
[22:12] Building a community in a medical fitness center
“And I think that's, that's what makes a medical fitness center so special. It's just, it's a community very similar to group exercise. The reason why group exercise is so successful is it builds a tribe, and everyone is part of that, and hold each other kind of accountable when they show up. So I think that's, that's kind of the big part of what makes medical fitness successful.”
