A new statewide initiative aims to shift primary doctors away from “pill-pushing” to treating the root causes of three of Tennessee’s obesity-related natural killers.
The new push comes from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC). Its Tennessee Population Health Consortium is taking aim at heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
“The overarching goal of the consortium is to shift primary care focus from pill-pushing to encouraging health behavior change using proven health coaching approaches,” reads a statement from UTHSC. To get there, the consortium will conduct research initiatives to “strengthen, support, and transform primary care practices across Tennessee.”
“For the first time, our UTHSC campuses across the state are contributing their substantial educational, training, information technology, and communications assets to explicitly support our statewide partners in their efforts to measurably improve health equity and population health,” said Dr. Jim Bailey, UTHSC professor and the consortium’s executive director. “We are all focused on strengthening and supporting primary and preventive care, where the true heroes of our health care system can do the most lifesaving work.”
UTHSC will serve as a hub of information, training, and best practices to help primary care physicians across the state offer new preventive services for patients. They’ll push this information through three main channels: the Tennessee Heart Health Network, the Diabetes Wellness and Prevention Coalition, and the Cancer Prevention and Control Program.
The consortium will also collect and build a statewide health data source, the Tennessee Population Health Data Network, to track health outcomes and improve heart health, diabetes, and cancer care across Tennessee.
