Fighting Chronic Diseases digitally In Cork. RediCare officially launched its chronic disease prevention and management clinic in Cork this week. RediCare provides doctor led prevention and management services to people who are overweight or hypertensive, or who may have high cholesterol, pre-diabetes or diabetes. RediCare interventions are evidence based, monitored lifestyle change programs backed by clinical research and are Doctor led. The interventions, which typically are 12-16 weeks in duration, are delivering very impressive results. Recent clinical data, which was presented at the Royal Academy of Medicine Ireland last week, showed blood pressure reducing by an average of 14.5% with an average weight loss of 19.43 Lbs over a 12 week period. The interventions are based on research and recommendations of the National Institute of Health (NIH) America. Commenting on the results, RediCare Doctor Barra O’Tuama said, “There is a clear link between weight loss, increased exercise and blood pressure reduction. The RediCare results are impressive as the blood pressure reductions were achieved in many cases without the need for blood pressure medication. “I would say, the current GP service delivery model is very stretched and probably under resourced to focus properly on prevention and management of chronic disease,” says Dr O Tuama, who is a Specialist Sports Medicine Physician and Family Doctor. Looking at a simple example, taking a patient 45 years of age, who is c. 15kg overweight and has high blood pressure develops chest pain and presents in A&E with query cardiac problems. This patient may have seen a GP in the prior 3-5 years, the patient was most likely told he/she was obese, had high blood pressure or high cholesterol and was strongly advised to lose weight, take exercise and make lifestyle changes. While there was a clinical need for significant behavioural medicine and intense lifestyle change, the current delivery model does not resource traditional GP practices to offer heavily monitored, intense behavioural change programs to their patients which focus on disease prevention. RediCare is addressing this need and has developed a platform to deliver behavioural medicine and lifestyle change programs remotely and from its clinic in Bishopstown Health Centre. The RediCare platform allows a Doctor and Health Coach to gain deep insights into a patient’s adherence and behaviour, by remotely monitoring on a daily basis what each patient is eating, what exercise they are taking and how much weight they are losing. This is a new area of medicine, “We never had access to this type of detailed patient data before,” commented Dr O Tuama. “What gets measured gets done and gets treated.” Adherence and Accountability is the Key to Success “Adherence monitoring and accountability is the Key to success,” says Andrew Sheppard, MSc RediCare’s lead health coach. Commenting on the program delivery, Andrew explains that each patient undergoes an initial doctors physical examination and has bloods taken to assess Cholesterol, Lipid Profiles, A1C and other key health markers. “Once patients are on an intervention, we monitor each clients adherence to their plan every day by remotely tracking their daily weight loss progress and their activity levels. We precisely track what they are eating which is very important for the treatment of Hypertension and High Cholesterol, we have full visibility on our client’s adherence to our treatment plan.” Vital biometrics including blood pressure are checked at regular intervals during the program. Each patient is held accountable to their Health Coach on a daily basis which increases patient adherence and results in significant improvements in patient health For more information on RediCare weight loss and chronic disease prevention and management services visit www.redicare.ie or call 021 487 6362
