Personalized Prevention

IIf all goes according to plan, the beginning of 2014 will bring a one-stop shop for all things health and wellness to the heart of New Albany.

A partnership between the city of New Albany, Healthy New Albany and The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is working to put a 48,000-square-foot community wellness center smack in the middle of the city’s Village Center. The center will be across the street from Village Hall, next to the Post Office at the intersection of Main Street and Village Hall Road.

Fitness, community activities and personalized medicine will all be part of the wellness center once it’s completed.

“What’s unique about it is it’s the first time that any one facility has mixed medicine, fitness and community well- ness all in one place,” says Scott McAfee, public information officer for the city.

The germ of the idea came from the early days of Healthy New Albany, when group organizers discussed the benefits of having a central facility focused on the preventative aspect of health in the community.

“We want to establish a model with benchmarks on how … you get a community healthy,” says Healthy New Albany founder Phil Heit.

The city will own the building. More than 70 percent of the space in it will be leased to OSU, while Healthy New Albany will oversee about 5,500 square feet of first-floor community space and will coordinate the activities going on there.

The second floor will be clinical space, the vast majority of which will be taken up by OSU with some space left aside for a future partner, likely a medical one. OSU’s section of the first floor, a fitness center, will be managed by Integrated Wellness Partners.

Personalized health care is a big part of OSU’s health model. Its version of the concept is called P4 Medicine: Predictive, Preventive, Personalized and Participatory. That means a customized health assessment for every patient using all the resources available in OSU’s considerable offerings.

OSU’s space will have a series of P4 Medicine tracks, which may range from orthopedic surgery recovery at one end to top competitive training at the other, says Larry Lewellen, vice president of care coordination and health promotion at Wexner Medical Center. Compare that, he says, to medical facilities that focus primarily on rehabilitation or fitness centers that are used mainly as a means for day-to-day exercise.

“The intention for this facility is to contribute to raising the health of the entire population, with a unique integration of health assessment, education, medical fitness and health care offerings,” Lewellen says.

Other highlights of OSU’s space will include expert consultations, a medical fitness center for physical conditioning, educational programming, technology to engage via social networking and smartphone apps, a variety of medical options from primary care to integrative medicine, and the ability to connect a patient’s health and wellness goals to the fitness options available to him or her.

Not to be overlooked in the work the wellness center will do is the research component. That means more and better tools to determine patients’ individual health needs, and to deliver the health services they personally need – no onesize-fits-all approaches here. It also means a heavier emphasis on prevention; doctors will be better equipped than ever to determine patients’ health risks and deal with them early.

“In partnership with the principals at Healthy New Albany, and with a team of faculty experts, we hope to define metrics and gather data to prove that New Albany has, over time, become the healthiest community in the nation,” Lewellen says.

All programs will be backed up by evidence-based research, allowing other communities to use New Albany’s model for their own health initiatives.

Healthy New Albany is working now to finalize what the community space will entail and determine what activities might occur there once it is completed. The goal is to offer programming for all age groups, and there will be community outreach efforts to determine New Albany residents’ priorities when it comes to activities.

Right now, Healthy New Albany has three committees, each looking at a facet of the building’s progress: one for clinical design, one for fitness design and one for community space design.

“What we’re trying to do with these groups is determine what the (interior of the) building should look like, how the space is used,” Heit says. “Once we have that, the architects go on to the next level of creating the plans.” by Dr.

Once those are created, the architec tural drawings on which the building will be based can be completed.

A demonstration kitchen, a multipur pose activity room and health-related re tail are just some of the options on the ta ble for the first floor. Pedestrian walkways outside the building will help connect the activity outdoors to the activity indoors.

“The building is going to be designed so there’s a really good flow between what’s going on inside and what’s going on outside,” McAfee says.

Because of the facility’s central location and wide appeal, officials hope it will also serve as a catalyst for further activity – retail, restaurants, even foot traffic – in and around the Village Center. It fits perfectly into the city’s goals of economic and environmental sustainability for Village Center, McAfee says.

“There has been a clear understanding that it is really important for the health of the community that the core remain vibrant,” he says.

The project is expected to break ground in early 2013, with construction time pegged at one year for an early 2014 opening. Almost a year has already been spent working on economic models to ensure the project will be viable in terms of construction and operation costs. The goal is to have the drawings completed and approved by the city before the end of this year.

“We will be bidding the project once the drawings are complete and finalizing contracts with the major components of the building to move forward with construction in that first quarter,” says Todd Sloan, executive vice president for Daimler Group, the city’s building partner on the project.

Garth Bishop is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at laurand@city scenemediagroup.com.

Because of my orthopedic care, I am now able to enjoy life everyday to the fullest... pain free! The best part is seeing the smile on my youngest grandson’s face when we are able to do fun things like walking the dogs, trick or treating on Halloween or just playing basketball in the driveway...

By Joseph Stefanov