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Establishing a Baseline for Health to Master your Health Goals
Establishing a health baseline is critical for effective personal health management. By working closely with your primary care provider, you can tailor a plan that addresses your unique health needs and sets manageable goals for lifelong wellness.
Dr. Allega breaks down how your primary care provider acts as the "quarterback" of your health, orchestrating the complex playbook of healthcare to help establish and maintain your health goals. From selecting the right timings for health screenings to monitoring crucial indicators like blood pressure and cholesterol, learn why it's important to start this partnership early.
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Hi and welcome to, and So Much More. I am here with Dr Allega, who is our primary care medical director, and we are at CMG Nationwide, which is one of our Lynchburg primary care offices also has a lot of other different types of specialties housed within here, but we wanted to film in a space that you are going to experience when you come in to have this primary care interaction, and so thank you for letting us do this.
Dr. Allega:We love to promote primary care services here at the organization and I love that we're filming in an exam room which is kind of like my favorite place to be. And so much happens in here, so this is great.
Cami:We're going to be talking about establishing a baseline for your health. So, you know everyone, at the beginning of every year, there's that like renewed exuberance to just jump in and get healthy, get fit, start eating all of the vegetables and doing and it can, it's a lot, it's overwhelming, it's a lot, it's overwhelming, it's a lot. And so we want to like, take all of that and bring it down to um, starting with just learning about your health in general, um and so a baseline for not even just getting fit. We're not talking about going out and lifting weights, about getting healthy, like knowing what's happening in your body and then making a decision from there, about setting goals, and really the most important thing you can do is set that appointment with your primary care provider. So, when it comes to like health and wellness and establishing this baseline, like we've talked about, why is it important to start with your primary care provider?
Dr. Allega:Well, I think I describe our primary care providers really as you know, the quarterback for your health. They are here for you. They're going to be here for you on your journey for years, many, many years. And I think when I think about you know the importance of a primary care provider in the lives of our patients. It really is just to be there for them and help to work through whatever we can to help you have the best possible health and live your best possible life in terms of the quality of your life. So I think you know it's really important to establish that relationship. I think for some patients it can be scary, but we want them to know that we're here for you and really we want to manage expectations and make manageable goals for you know that specific patient. So really an individualized plan.
Cami:You mentioned you can go for, and should go for, years and years and years. So why is it important to start early on?
Dr. Allega:I think it's important to start early on because, you know, as we age, our health changes and there's certain things that we have to think about that we didn't have to before. As we get older, we may require more health screenings, like mammograms and colonoscopies, bone density tests. There's changes that happen in our bodies, you know. We can gain weight, there can be associated increases in blood pressure, there can be increases in our cholesterol, not just due to our age but due to our family histories. So it's really important to get that individualized plan to look at what's happening and then really discuss what the next steps are moving forward to make sure that we reduce, you know, any kind of risks of heart attack, stroke, help with things like smoking cessation, dietary modification, sleep hygiene all the things that really contribute to our wellness.
Cami:How often should a patient come, or expect to come for their visit?
Dr. Allega:So again, that's going to be individualized. There are some patients that we see that only need to see us once a year. There are other patients that see us typically once every six months, and then there are patients that we may see more frequently, with more chronic medical conditions and comorbidities, so every three months or even every month potentially.
Cami:And I love that you talked about, or even briefly mentioned, like it can be scary, like that fear.
Cami:Um, because I mean, there's a lot of questions that are happening in that office and and and even just sharing so much of yourself like it can be so overwhelming Some. For some people it's just even going into a doctor's facility. Yes, it can be a lot. So what are some things that they can expect when they come? Like, what does that appointment look like? Just so for those who are like, nope, it's not happening, maybe we can put you at ease a little bit by better understanding what you're going to experience.
Dr. Allega:So when you come into our facilities, you know you're going to be greeted by one of our amazing medical office assistants. They may require you to do some registration with your health insurance. You'll be seated in the waiting room and then a nurse will call you in. And the nurse will call you in as part of the care team. They may check some of your vital signs, like your weight, your blood pressure, your heart rate, your oxygen saturation. When you come into our exam rooms, they will look at what medications you're on, obtain some of your histories, like your family history, social history and past medical history, and then they will get you set up and then our provider one of our wonderful providers will come in the room and greet you and begin looking at some of your histories, your labs, your medications and really coming up with an individualized plan for you.
Cami:I love you talked about the different people Yes, because it really is like this team approach, this care team that you have working for you. And it's really cool when you think about coming back, these faces that you expect to see over time and I'm one of those patients who comes once a year well, technically twice because they come for lab work as well and I love the faces that I see and you just recognize and that is a big part, I think, that I see and you just recognize, and that is a big part, I think, of feeling comfortable and feeling at ease as well. So I want to talk about lab work, because that is a part of what you're doing and that is a huge part of establishing that baseline of what is my body doing. How am I doing? Because there's so much going on inside of us that we will never know unless you really take that deeper look. So how does lab work really work here? But then also, how is that a part of the bigger process?
Dr. Allega:lab work is very important because we do our physical exams, so that gives us some clues into how you're doing. We listen to your heart. When we listen to your heart, we could hear abnormal rhythms. Listen to your lungs, we may hear you know something that doesn't sound like clear breath sounds and that may lead us to do other testing. But with your lab work, that really tells us what's happening inside you. So we may detect things on your blood work like anemia or abnormal kidney function, diabetes, high liver function testing. There may be a little bit of high cholesterol and sugar, and those things give the providers clues as to what the next steps are in terms of a treatment plan. So is there a diagnosis of diabetes? Do we need to monitor chronic kidney disease? Do we need to treat cholesterol? And the reason we do all those things is really to reduce the patient's risk of things like heart attack and stroke. So that's really what the lab really reveals quite a bit of information.
Cami:That's kind of how you take your lab results and make them work for you. What does it look like when you have been tasked with something very specific? You want to change that number that you're seeing? Yeah, and how does that partnership work with your PCP to do?
Dr. Allega:What I like to tell patients is we're going to focus a little bit on the numbers, but what we really want to look at is the trends right so if we want to bring a patient's blood sugar down, we're going to talk about dietary modification.
Dr. Allega:You know, carbohydrates in the diet, walking exercise, so some types of lifestyle modification. And then there are also medications that we can give patients for high blood sugar that may lower their sugar, and there's many, many medications for that, and the provider will choose a specific medication based on you, so your kidney function and a few other factors.
Cami:So back to this whole goal orientation side of this. Now you have all this information, right, and I love when I get my lab work because I just want to like, dig in immediately. And for those of you who are achievement based, like I am, if you are trying to move a number, it is when you see that hard work pays off and that you can get the result in partnership with your PCP. It is really cool off, and that you can get the result in partnership with your PCP. It is really cool, um, but how like, like, let's say, you have, you have the results of your physical, you have your lab work and now you're like okay, I want to set some goals, right? Um, how does that all play together and how would you even suggest people with that information start setting healthy goals for their life?
Dr. Allega:I think that's going to be really a discussion between the patient and their PCP, because everybody's different right. So a goal for one patient for exercise may be walking 30 minutes every other day and for someone else it may be more intense physical activity. And you know, there are other types of goals we set in terms of how many hours of sleep we're getting. You know weight goals, which I think you know we tend to really fixate on numbers, but we want to look at the trends and we really want to focus on feeling good and living a healthy lifestyle and not focusing so much on the number.
Cami:It's funny that you're talking about that number, because this is just a culture that's very fixated on numbers and the goals that are associated with them. But I feel like when you're thinking about fitness and so many people, when you think of establishing a baseline for your health, your mind goes immediately to fitness and we want to be careful that, yes, fitness can improve obviously, your, your physical health, um, and even your mental health. It's, it isn't, doesn't need to be a part of establishing that baseline. It's kind of like what's next on the journey. That is a part of the goals you're setting once you've set that baseline in place.
Dr. Allega:I think fitness is a super important part of health and I think you know we counsel a lot on that when we talk to our PCP. But there's also other things like trying to reduce stress in your life, trying to eat a healthy diet, trying to get enough sleep, reducing alcohol consumption, you know, working with your provider to try to quit smoking.
Cami:There are a lot of things that wellness encompasses when we look at our baseline and having that relationship with your primary care, because there's no judgment.
Dr. Allega:There's no judgment. I think that's also something that we want our patients to understand is that when you come and see our providers, they're really here to see you and work with you in a compassionate way and really just be with you on the journey.
Cami:Yes, it's a partner. It's nice to have somebody in your corner who knows the things they need to know to be the right motivation, and so that's really. The next thing I want to talk about is that we're kind of like coming to the end here is you know you have this stuff going on, like how can your primary care provider be that partner to keep motivated, to keep climbing and getting towards that goal year over year? Because I mean, there are some short-term goals but your health is a journey. It's going to take years in a lot of cases to get where you need to go.
Dr. Allega:Right, I think you know it's about that continuous improvement. So you see your PCP however often you have to see them. You know, in the case of, say, a patient that's seeing their primary care provider every six months, you're reviewing your health every six months and then setting up a plan saying come back again in six months and then setting up a plan saying come back again in six months. However, if you deviate from you know feeling healthy or there's something off for you, definitely reach out because we will address it.
Cami:It's a healthy balance. We were kind of joking before. You don't want to be calling your primary care provider for everything. You don't want to be calling your primary care provider for everything, and that may be your initial reaction, but using that as the partner that they're really meant to be when something is wrong, when something seems off and I know I've had such a good experience with my primary care provider and after we've had some conversations, she'll say I'm going to check back with you in three months and I know after that three-month period I can expect that call and she just checks in and make sure we're still on track and and it's been great. And that's what it's supposed to look like, that partnership together. So is there anything I haven't asked you that you want to make sure is included? I just want to make sure we cover everything.
Dr. Allega:Yeah, no, I feel like I just want to encourage people really to set up that relationship with their PCP. We have many new providers within primary care services that are accepting new patients now and we are just here for the community to establish those relationships and really follow our patients over the course of their lifetime.
Cami:So just to know that we're here for the community, yeah, and if you guys did want to go and get more information about primary care services and see some of the physicians that are here and some of the locations that are available, check out our website and it's under primary care as one of our services and thank you guys for joining us on and So Much More.
