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Ornish Lifestyle Medicine at Beebe Healthcare Receives Re-accreditation

Note: Beebe Healthcare no longer offers the Ornish program at our locations. Other programs related to health and nutrition are ongoing.

Beebe Healthcare has been awarded with Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation re-certification for 2019 through the Medicare-approved program, Dr. Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease® (Ornish Lifestyle Medicine™). In 2015, Beebe Healthcare and Sharecare, Inc. joined forces to bring the nationally acclaimed program to patients in the Sussex County area. Ornish Lifestyle Medicine is the first and only program scientifically proven to not only treat but reverse the progression of heart disease through comprehensive lifestyle changes. The re-certification assesses the integrity of a sites’ program delivery including – clinical outcomes, clinical delivery team competency, engagement effectiveness, and patient and provider satisfaction.

The Beebe team is comprised of multi-disciplinary healthcare providers including a medical director, registered dietician, chef, stress management specialist, nurse case manager, exercise physiologist, and group support facilitator. The specially trained team works together to guide participants through four key areas: nutrition, stress management, fitness, and social support. Participants learn to take control of their treatment by acquiring the knowledge, training, and community resources needed to sustain a healthier lifestyle. Participants typically include those who have been diagnosed with cardiovascular illnesses or other chronic conditions.

By providing this Medicare-approved program, Beebe Healthcare is able to increase non-invasive treatment options for patients and physicians while motivating participants to make positive lifestyle changes. Through the third year of offering the program, over 135 area residents have been able to take control of their health, resulting in: 5 percent decrease in weight and BMI, 10 percent decrease in total cholesterol, and 6 percent decrease in A1C.

“Beebe is thrilled to be able to offer the Ornish Lifestyle Medicine program, to not only treat but reverse heart disease,” said Abby Tschoepe, Manager, Non-Invasive Cardiac and Vascular Services. “We are the only hospital in Delaware or on the Eastern Shore to offer this program, and our recent re-accreditation speaks to the phenomenal work and dedication of the Ornish team.”

The Ornish Lifestyle Medicine program aligns with industry-wide efforts to create value-based reimbursement models that reward health systems and physicians for sustained patient improvement. Simply put, healthier and better-managed patients require less treatment, and therefore cost health systems less money, over time. The program is currently reimbursed nationwide by Medicare and most Health insurances.

 

Dean Ornish, MD, is the founder and Chief Medical Officer of Ornish Lifestyle Medicine at Sharecare. Dr. Ornish is also the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Since 2013, Dr. Ornish and Sharecare have been working together as strategic partners to expand access to the Ornish Lifestyle Medicine programs across the country.

Documented in 40 years of research, Ornish Lifestyle Medicine remains the only program scientifically proven in randomized controlled trials to reverse the progression of heart disease without drugs or surgery. Medicare agreed in 2011 to cover Dr. Ornish’s program for reversing heart disease, the first of its kind to receive Medicare coverage. Since then CMS and commercial payers across the county are reimbursing for the Ornish Lifestyle Medicine program under the new benefit category of Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation.

For more information: www.ornish.com.