Health Department

Healthcare Providers

Appropriate and Balanced Heathcare

The general public relies on local healthcare providers to deliver timely and appropriate care in the detection, treatment and management of chronic health conditions. Healthcare providers should be proactive in delivering an equal standard of care towards the prevention and management of these conditions.

A simple risk assessment, combined with a family history and basic health screening can determine one's risk for a variety of chronic conditions. Once this has taken place, a treatment plan including diet, exercise and tobacco cessation (if necessary) should follow. Counseling on diet, exercise, and tobacco cessation is often overlooked or not stressed by healthcare providers for a variety of reasons.

Clinical Practice Guidelines

Healthcare providers follow Clinical Practice Guidelines, which are systematically developed statements that assist the practitioner and patient with decisions about appropriate healthcare for specific clinical circumstances. Current Clinical Guidelines for the Asthma, High Blood Cholesterol, High Blood Pressure, and Overweight and Obesity can be accessed at the Clinical Practice Guidelines section of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.

Lifestyle modification (changing your personal behaviors regarding eating, exercising and using tobacco) is an integral part of chronic disease management within clinical practice guidelines. These topics must be addressed by your provider. And you, as the patient, must treat diet, exercise and tobacco cessation as seriously as taking any prescribed medicines. Chronic conditions cannot be appropriately treated and managed without lifestyle modification.

Ounce of Prevention

The Ounce of Prevention toolkit provides healthcare providers with user-friendly nutrition and physical activity messages that should be shared while reviewing children's height and weight during routine well-child or other provider appointments. The toolkit is appropriate for physicians, WIC, Child and Family Health Services and other child health providers.

Exercise Is Medicine

Exercise plays an integral role in the prevention, treatment and management of most chronic conditions. Exercise is Medicine is a pilot program in Washington County that allows local physicians to write a prescription for exercise to appropriate patients. Referred patients are then matched with a certified exercise professional, so that exercise becomes an integral part of the patient's disease management plan.

Get Involved

Any provider that is interested in becoming active in the Exercise is Medicine program or utilizing the Ounce of Prevention toolkit should contact Court Witschey at 740-374-2782 or cvh@washco-ohhealth.org.