Whole person health for the whole population: one-year evaluation of health coaching.

Chronic diseases drive significant health care utilization and costs in the US. Simultaneously, there is growing evidence that self-care and collaborative decision-making practices are linked to improvements in health-related outcomes and reduced health care costs.In April of 2005, Kaiser Permanente (KP) Georgia implemented a population care management service that included personal health coaching services to its 277,000 patients. KP Healthy Solutions (HS) provided the health coaching support, powered by analytics, to participants. Health coaches were available by telephone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. HS users included patients with chronic conditions, those seeking to make healthy lifestyle changes, and patients with "preference sensitive" conditions who were considering treatment alternatives. Many of these services are provided in collaboration with HS's strategic vendor, Health Dialog, a national leader in the disease management industry. Data from September 2005 to September 2006 indicates that HS increases both quality outcomes and overall patient satisfaction with KP and achieves cost reductions, all of which create a significant return on investment.