Episode #344: Dr. Laurie Whitsel & Tom Richards

In one of our most important podcasts released to date, we're proud to talk with Dr. Laurie Whitsel, Vice President of Policy Research and Translation of the American Heart Association & Senior Advisor to the Physical Activity Alliance, a non-profit that, "Brings together stakeholders in the physical activity communities for us to speak with one voice on significant policy and systems changes," states Whitsel.  Joining her is Integrity Square's own Chief Political Architect and policy veteran, Tom Richards, JD who also heads up Activist in Motion.

It is critical everyone in the HALO sector know about the work going on behind the scenes in something called the HL7 process (Health Level Seven International) and the steps currently being taken to, "Build standardized measures for assessing, prescribing, and referring physical activity for patients."

Concurrent with that is the Time To Move initiative, a multi-year, multi pronged approach which (among other things) involves bringing in and standardizing billing codes for physical activity, connecting wearables so the data can flow and follow the patient through healthcare delivery, but also working with with CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services) to get coverage determinations for the exercise prescription for health and fitness professionals to offer it and more.  

These things are happening now and Dr. Whitsel is the tip of this particular spear. Pete Moore, host of HALO Talks, mentions early on that this is indeed like "moving boulders" but they are moving. . . perhaps further and faster than we all thought. 

Policy conversations may not be everyone's particular cup of tea when you have a business to run and 100 other things demanding your attention. However, what Dr. Whitsel discusses here and what is literally happening right now will have incredibly far ranging positive effects for the entire industry-and probably sooner rather than later. 

This is one of our longer episodes and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. All the resources mentioned are available at the links below. Get involved now! 

• PAA Letter to the White House
• PAA HL7 Slides
• PAA Action Plan

Click here to download transcript.