Using Technology to Accelerate Physical Activity Prescription and Referral [Podcast Series]

Dr. Andrew Mock is Medical Director at Hoag Medical Group.
He is also the American College of Lifestyle Medicine representative to the Physical Activity Alliance Board of Directors, gym owner, and strong man.

“And I always had this dream of like, what if, rather than people coming to us at the hospital when they're sick, what if we went to them in the places where they were taking care of their health? Why can't the gym be the same place that we are seeing patients? And that's how I started my first year of medical school, is thinking about, what does the gym clinic look like?”

“You have to have appropriate discussion of risk and benefits of all of the available treatments. And if we have this very powerful tool for improvement of so many chronic health conditions and quality of life, if we are not discussing it, is that an ethical concern? And I would argue it very much is. There's a lot of reasons we don't discuss it, but I do think we have a moral imperative to make sure that we are finding ways to have exercise be part of the conversation.”

“We always have to make sure that we are having the and conversation, right?, with these treatments. And that goes for lifestyle as a whole, because it is physical activity and adequate sleep and health promoting dietary pattern and, when needed, medications and, when needed, right?, greater level of surgical intervention.”

“The single most important thing that clinicians can do is do the exercise yourselves, like full stop. That is the most important thing for exactly the reasons that you highlighted. You are more likely to discuss it with your patients. Your patients are more likely to ask you about it. You're more likely to counsel your patients and encourage them to do it, and then your patients are more likely to follow that advice. So that is so important, and at the end of the day, like, what's the worst case scenario? We now have happier, healthier healthcare professionals which will take better care of their patients because they're taking better care of their health.”

“So with my physical therapy department at Loma Linda, we created a sarcopenia referral, right? So all the patient had to do was report loss of muscle mass and function, and we could send them to physical therapy one day per week to really just focus on compound movements in a progressive fashion to get stronger and then eventually bridge them, right?, to a community based exercise program, whether that was with a personal trainer, a medical fitness program or a self-directed exercise program.”

“It is certainly very easy to create cash-based programs, and so many people pursue cash-based programs just because of the complicated nature of the insurance piece.”

“I'm actually very excited to see what things will look like when we are incorporating additional exercise education into medical school curriculum, because it does take a conscious effort. At Loma Linda, we incorporated 100 hours of lifestyle medicine education across all four years. And there's actually only two schools in the country that have achieved that Platinum Plus designation. It's Loma Linda University and University of Greenville, South Carolina.”

[26:22] Using technology to accelerate physical activity prescription and referral

“And that creates not only a very interesting workforce solution, but it also creates a very interesting public health data collection. Because now I know exactly what someone is doing for their physical activity, and the implications in terms of physical activity research and healthcare Improvement are just huge when that sort of things become possible.”

Mindful Movement as Medicine [Podcast Series]