The Road to Ill Health is Paved with Bad Habits

 By Paul Stewart

Sky Lakes Medical Center in the Herald and News

August 27, 2010

There are four components to the health of a community: The physical environment, the socioeconomic climate, the healthcare delivery systems, and the community’s health habits.

Research indicates that, when it comes to community health, we have plenty of opportunities for improvement. We have many excellent systems we can build on, yet the solutions won’t come easy. We all have our talents and we should contribute as we can accordingly.

Sky Lakes Medical Center, for example, is very good at providing high-quality care with dignity, kindness and safety; we are very successful at recruiting physician specialists to our area. But we would be lousy at building bicycle paths; other community partners are better suited to handle those types of projects.

Improving the community’s health needs to include ways to reduce unemployment, address poverty and a host of other factors that contribute to how well our society cares for itself. Many of those efforts clearly are beyond the scope of what the medical center, or any single entity for that matter, is able to do.

But there are some things we can and must do individually and collectively to help people enjoy better health. We can start by taming the “Four Horsemen of Bad Health” –- poor diet, too little exercise, immoderate drinking of alcohol, and smoking –- with formal programs and by example. These four factors can decrease the average person’s lifespan by up to 12 years. We all need to make healthier life choices.

Empowering people to eat smarter, exercise more, drink alcohol in moderation and to not smoke so they can live better and longer are my top priorities for our community. And we all can contribute.

Paul Stewart has been president and CEO of Sky Lakes Medical Center (formerly Merle West Medical Center) for 18 years after six years as director of clinical services at the medical center. He serves on an assortment of local, state and federal finance- and healthcare-related boards and committees.