CoxHealth named a Best Regional Hospital by U.S. News & World Report

For immediate release
July 16, 2013

For the second year in a row, CoxHealth has been named a Best Regional Hospital by U.S. News & World Report magazine in the publication’s annual Best Hospitals guidebook. In addition, CoxHealth was recognized as a “high-performing hospital” in the specialties of gastroenterology and GI surgery, gynecology, nephrology, and pulmonology.

“We are proud to be the highest ranking hospital in our service area, and the only Springfield area hospital to receive this recognition two years in a row,” said Steve Edwards, CoxHealth president and CEO. “This is a wonderful national recognition of the care and compassion provided by our physicians and staff. We are flattered to be included in what has become the gold-star recognition of hospital quality.”

“A hospital that emerges from our analysis as one of the best has much to be proud of,” said Avery Comarow, U.S. News health rankings editor. “Only about 15 percent of hospitals are recognized for their high performance as among their region’s best.” 

The rankings are largely based on objective measures of hospital performance and hospital resources, such as patient survival and safety data, and nurse staffing levels. The rankings are meant to function as a GPS-like aid to help steer patients to hospitals with strong skills in the procedures and medical conditions that represent the biggest challenges. The full list of rankings is available online at usnews.com, and will appear in print Aug. 27. 

CoxHealth is the only locally owned, not-for-profit health system based in Springfield, Mo. It is accredited by The Joint Commission, distinguished as one of the nation’s Top 100 Integrated Healthcare Systems (2006-2012) and committed to caring for the community. 

Established in 1906, the organization serves more than 900,000 people in a 25-county service area in southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas, offering a comprehensive array of primary and specialty care including five hospitals and more than 84 clinics in 24 communities. The health system includes Cox Medical Center South, Cox Medical Center Branson, Cox North Hospital, Meyer Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Hospital, Cox Monett Hospital, Oxford HealthCare (the nation’s second largest hospital-based home health agency), Home Parenteral Services (home infusion therapy), CoxHealth Foundation, Cox College, Cox HealthPlans and more.

CoxHealth receives Gold Seal from The Joint Commission

Hospital granted Gold Seal of Approval for total hip and knee joint replacements 

CoxHealth has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval for its knee and hip replacement programs, by demonstrating compliance with state-of-the-art national standards for quality and safety in disease-specific care. 

CoxHealth underwent a rigorous on-site review in early June. An expert from The Joint Commission evaluated the organization for compliance with standards of care specific to the needs of patients and families, including infection prevention, leadership and medication management. 

“Our staff and physicians at the Meyer Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Hospital and the Cox South orthopedic unit are dedicated to providing our patients with the safest, highest quality care,” says Tyler Hedden, CoxHealth vice president of clinical services. “This certification is a validation of that work, and our drive to provide the best care for the communities we serve will continue to result in excellent outcomes for our orthopedic patients.” 

“In achieving Joint Commission certification, CoxHealth has demonstrated its commitment to the highest level of care for its patients who receive elective knee and hip replacements,” says Jean Range, executive director of Disease-Specific Care Certification with The Joint Commission. “Certification is a voluntary process and I commend CoxHealth for successfully undertaking this challenge to elevate its standard of care and instill confidence in the community it serves.” 

The Joint Commission’s Disease-Specific Care Certification Program is designed to evaluate clinical programs across the continuum of care. Certification requirements address three core areas: compliance with consensus-based national standards, effective use of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines to manage and optimize care; and an organized approach to performance measurement and improvement activities.

CoxHealth earns ‘Most Wired’ honors

Nation’s Most Wired hospitals demonstrate progress with Health Information Technology 

CoxHealth has again been recognized as a Most Wired: Most Improved hospital in the 2013 Most Wired Survey, recently released by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. 

The survey, conducted in conjunction with the American Hospital Association, measures how hospitals across the country are adopting information technology to improve patient care. This year marks the survey’s 15th anniversary, and the third time CoxHealth has been recognized. 

“I’m pleased to see the hard work and dedication of our information technology staff and organizational leaders recognized with this award, and I’m thankful for the physicians and caregivers who have embraced these IT solutions,” says Bruce Robison, CoxHealth vice president and CIO. “Each step forward improves our ability to provide an excellent experience for our patients.” 

The CoxHealth Si3 IT team has implemented projects that improve patient documentation, advance clinical decision support and evidence-based protocols, reduce the likelihood of medication errors, and rapidly restore access to data in the case of a disaster or outage. 

“This year’s Most Wired organizations exemplify progress through innovation” says Rich Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association. “The hospital field can learn from these outstanding organizations ways that IT can help to improve efficiency.” 

Health Care’s Most Wired Survey, conducted between Jan. 15 and March 15, asked hospitals and health systems nationwide to answer questions regarding their IT initiatives. Respondents completed 659 surveys, representing 1,713 hospitals, or roughly 30 percent of all U.S. hospitals. The H&HN cover story detailing results is available at www.hhnmag.com.

Residency takes a big picture approach

Family medicine physicians are key to integrating care, helping patients manage their health. 

As best as she can remember, Dr. Stephanie Pendergrass has always wanted to be a physician. She doesn’t recall what sparked her interest in medicine, but she remembers a story she wrote in the first grade about being a doctor. She followed the path she set early in life and years later, after she graduated from medical school, she returned home to Springfield to attend the Cox Family Medicine Residency. 

Like her original pursuit of medicine, her choice of family medicine was based on instinct. “I knew I wanted to do family medicine,” Dr. Pendergrass says. Like many family medicine physicians, she was drawn to the appeal of caring for a patient over the years and seeing many members of the same family.

“We’re treating people, not just a medical problem. I’ve been able to tell a woman she is pregnant, then taken her through pre-natal care, then delivery, and now I see her and her son. That’s very exciting to me – I love that.”

After completing her residency early this summer, Dr. Pendergrass has joined the ranks of more than 150 physicians who have graduated from the program since its inception 25 years ago. As the program completes its first quarter-century, leaders say the comprehensive training the Cox Family Medicine Residency provides is more vital than ever – for CoxHealth, for the region and for the future of patient care in a shifting health care climate. 

Those are big claims, but spend a little time with residency leaders, such as Dr. Larry Halverson, founder and senior faculty physician, and Dr. Tim Fursa, residency director, and they make it clear that seeing the big picture is at the heart of family medicine.

They’re quick to point out that family medicine is set to play a key role in addressing our national health care crisis. Across the country, health care costs are going up, but the outcomes aren’t always getting better. The question becomes: How do we get more value out of the system? What skill set does a physician need to make a difference for patients?

“We have to look at individuals and their needs – not just acute needs, but ongoing needs,” Dr. Fursa says. “How can we change their behaviors and their habits to support a healthy lifestyle? We have to understand the whole person and how to engage them with specialized care.”

Because of the relationships they build with patients and families over time, family medicine physicians are in a unique position to provide comprehensive care and improve community health. 

It was the need for more family medicine physicians in a growing region that led Dr. Halverson to leave his practice in Aurora to help found the residency. At the time, the average age of a family medicine physician in southwest Missouri was 62. Dr. Halverson and the early residency leaders knew that with the region’s growth, there would be a real need for more family physicians. Over the last 25 years, the residency has helped meet that need: 92 of the residency’s graduates are practicing within 100 miles of Springfield.

Dr. Fursa says that from the beginning, the mission of the residency has been to train doctors that can go out, anywhere, and provide care in any environment: from the hospital setting to rural practice to international medicine. The full-scope training is especially important for physicians who may practice in rural or remote areas, where there may not be another physician within 100 miles.

“Not all of our physicians do those things, but the training to do so enhances their skills,” Dr. Fursa says. Leaders point out that many residencies don’t do obstetrics, an important skill set for physicians who are the primary doctor for a community. Here, the residents enjoy support from CoxHealth hospitals, where they are able to work directly with expectant mothers. 

Dr. Stephanie Pendergrass visits with patient Angela Hall of Springfield during a visit at the Family Medical Care Center at Cox North. 

When the residency began, Dr. Halverson envisioned a program that focused on providing prenatal care and delivering babies. While that’s still a large part of the residency, much of the focus now is on helping patients manage chronic conditions. 

Dr. Halverson points out that nationally, about 1 percent of patients consume almost 30 percent of health care dollars, while 5 percent consume about 50 percent of the total.

“With more than 90 percent of people, we’re doing fine, so we focus on those 10 percenters. Focusing on that group is what primary care does,” he says.

There are few family medicine providers on the north side of Springfield, so the Family Medical Care Center at Cox North serves a valuable community purpose.

“Many people in that 1 percent of the population that consumes 30 percent of health care costs live right here,” Dr. Halverson says. Providing primary care for patients with limited resources can head off the need for more expensive care later. And, it’s simply the right thing to do.

In addition to meeting a community need, the residency serves as a laboratory for innovative ways to provide care. Halverson and Fursa both note that electronic medical records at CoxHealth were piloted first at the residency in the mid-1990s before their use became the standard system-wide. Now, they believe the residency’s new approaches to managing chronic conditions could become the standard for patient care in the future. They may even offer the key to a health care holy grail: improving outcomes while reducing costs. 

Among the innovations going on at the residency:

Providing a medical home: In 2010, the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) certified the Family Medical Care Center as a level three patient-centered medical home, the first such clinic in southwest Missouri and only the second in the state. The patient-centered medical home model is designed to strengthen physician-patient relationships and better integrate a patient’s care. 

Dr. Fursa says that when practices pursue medical home status, they sometimes choose easy things to focus on. But FMCC picked three chronic conditions that affected most of their patients: diabetes, depression and pain management. If they could affect those three things, they could make a difference in patients’ lives.

Pioneering group visits: The residency is exploring new ways to serve patients beyond the traditional one-on-one between a patient and a doctor. Now, patients with conditions such as diabetes are seen in a group setting. They are still able to get prescriptions, tests and referrals just like in a regular visit, but they all receive education on diabetes during the session. The group environment gives patients more access to their physician, while the physician saves time by providing the education once, rather than in individual sessions. 

Support groups: FMCC is currently hosting “Healthier Together,” a support group for patients that provides education and encourages healthy lifestyles. “Patients can influence each other and people change in groups better than individually,” Dr. Halverson says.

Drs. Halverson and Fursa say that as they work with patients over time, family medicine physicians are in the best position to see the entire scope of a patient’s situation. Whereas much of medicine is focused on specific interventions to fix a problem, the overall view a family medicine physician provides can be key to improved outcomes. 

Dr. Halverson cites an anecdotal example from another health system: A patient receiving dialysis comes in for treatment, only to remove his IVs early and leave. A few days later, he lands in the ER, suffering from renal failure. The ER solves the immediate problem, but they’re not in a position to look into the overall case. 

A social worker who was part of a patient-centered medical home team was able to do an in-home visit, a service that the residency also provides for its patients. At the home, she noticed that the patient had trouble sitting still. He told her he was restless and it was always hard for him to be calm – especially in a stressful situation such as receiving dialysis. Only one thing kept him calm: painting. The social worker suggested that he be allowed to paint while receiving dialysis. The strategy worked and he returned to his regular course of dialysis. Because the social worker on the family medicine team was able to look at the entirety of the patient’s situation, a simple change was able to head off a complex, expensive intervention down the line.

Dr. Halverson says that’s the power of family medicine. Skilled physicians like those the residency trains are able to coordinate a patient’s overall wellness, which produces benefits that reverberate throughout the health care system. 

“The data shows that if you have more primary care doctors in a population, you have lower costs and better outcomes,” Dr. Halverson says. “The solution to overcrowded ERs isn’t just to provide more ERs. Part of it is to get more family medicine physicians on the front lines to provide ongoing care that can help people manage their health.”

Dr. Pendergrass says the residency has given her the chance to oversee the full range of care for her patients – being on the front lines for everything from the birth of a child to end-of-life care. It’s simultaneously challenging and rewarding, but she says that seeing her regular patients make positive lifestyle changes is one of the best parts of working in family medicine. 

“You work a lot in any residency, but here you really take ownership of your patients. On day one, patients look at you as ‘my new doctor,’” she says. “That’s a lot of pressure, but it’s good pressure – you’re not an observer of the situation, you’re the doctor managing the situation.” 

With her training complete, Dr. Pendergrass and two of her fellow residents are joining CoxHealth full-time this summer in the Diagnostic Clinic, where they will be providing inpatient, outpatient and prenatal care.

This summer, eight new residents will be joining the Cox Family Medicine Residency, beginning their journey from medical school graduates to primary care physicians trained in the full scope of patient care. Dr. Fursa says the field of family medicine draws a special kind of physician, one who is eager to take on the wide variety of challenges and issues patients may present with in the primary care setting. 

“For the family medicine physician, some uncertainty is part of the territory,” he says. 

A big part of the skill set for new physicians is being able to navigate uncertainty and help patients find the correct solutions. “We’re often faced with situations where we can’t know all the answers, but we train to know the pathway to get the right answer.” 

Leaders say that flexible approach is valuable both on the small scale with individual patients and on a larger scale as we evolve to provide patient-centered care in a changing environment.

“The people who choose this program are purpose-based and value-based,” Dr. Fursa says. “Their heads and hearts are in the right place to take care of patients.”

Volunteer finds a way to make a difference

Beth Christensen says working at a hospital is something she’s long dreamed of doing.

“I love helping people and serving people,” she says. “My goal is to help the hospital become a better place for patients, doctors, nurses – everyone who comes here.”

Volunteer coordinator Pat Long says that desire to help is one of the first things everyone sees about Beth – that and her contagious smile. Beth says she wants those things to be noticed before people notice that she is deaf and has cerebral palsy.

In the past, Pat had worked closely with the deaf community in Springfield and as soon as she met Beth, she knew she wanted to find a place for her to volunteer.

“She believes in the hospital and it’s important for volunteers to believe in what we do,” Pat says. Pat saw Health Information Management director Robin Gann on the shuttle one morning and mentioned Beth. Robin set her up with an interview and she was a perfect fit.

Since last February, Beth has been lending her talents as a volunteer in HIM, filing charts and double-checking information as it’s entered into the system. She has a good eye for detail and a lot of experience in office settings, so the work comes naturally for her.

“Paid or not, I love to help people and helping the hospital,” she says. “This hospital is wonderful and awesome.”

Her desire to work in health care evolved from a painful chapter in her life. Growing up, she saw the inside of a hospital more than she would have liked. Her father, who suffered from hemophilia, was in and out of hospitals for years before he passed away in 1994.

“For a long time, I didn’t like going to hospitals because of my grief,” she says. “Now, after many years, I’ve accepted it. Hospitals are wonderful places, not horrible places. They save people’s lives. These are places where God is here to help people and care for people. And my smile can bring joy. That’s what I believe.”

Now, with some experience inside the hospital setting, Beth says she hopes to work toward an employed position at CoxHealth, ideally in Health Information Management.

“There are such nice, wonderful people here, working together as a team,” she says. “I believe in teamwork.

“I believe disabilities shouldn’t be barriers for working anywhere. I don’t allow it to bother me. I keep a positive attitude, smiling and happy, no matter what I do. I never say ‘I can’t,’ I say, ‘Yes I can.’”

Scramble for Miracles to benefit Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals of CoxHealth

Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals of CoxHealth will hold the 12th Annual Scramble for Miracles Golf Tournament Monday, July 22, at the Fremont Hills Golf Course, 1953 Fremont Hills Dr., Nixa. The tournament title sponsor is Heavy Duty Rebuilders Supply, Inc. 

The Scramble for Miracles Golf Tournament features a 4-person scramble format, and is limited to 32 teams. The individual entry fee is $125 and team entries are $500. The fee includes greens fees, golf cart, lunch, dinner and a gift. Tournament sponsorship opportunities are also available. The tournament begins with a 1 p.m. shotgun start and ends with a BBQ dinner and an awards ceremony. 

Proceeds from the tournament will benefit Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals of CoxHealth. These funds are used to purchase lifesaving equipment, provide education and wellness programs and deliver “health care on wheels” with the C.A.R.E. Mobile, a mobile health clinic that provides free health screenings and immunizations to children who have no access to or cannot afford health care. 
Please call 417-269-3162 to sign up today.

Meet Dr. Abe Abdalla

Q: In your new role as medical director of the cancer service line, what will you be focusing on in the near future? 

A: “Our ultimate goal is to provide state of the art, comprehensive and compassionate care for our cancer patients. I use that as my motto in my everyday work. 

The landscape of health care is changing and we are well positioned to continue to provide excellent care. Several new and exciting milestones have occurred that make us confident of a bright future, including the BJC collaborative, Cox Branson and the establishment of a new Medical Research department. 

While we are recognized as the place to go for cancer care in Springfield, our goal is to be the primary program for a much larger area and to ensure the highest quality of care and access to clinical trials for a larger population.” 

Q: How did you come to practice here at CoxHealth? 

A: “I was born and raised in Syria, where my parents had migrated from Turkey. My family is Christian, a minority in Turkey, and because of various religious upheavals my grandparents had to literally migrate every 30-50 years. When I decided to pursue my education, I wanted to do that in the United States. 

I did my medical training at the University of Chicago and then joined the faculty of the university. I never thought I’d leave the university – until I met and married a Missourian! It was one of the best things to ever happen to me. She’s from Columbia, and we wanted to come to Missouri. We came here in July of 2000 and it has been a perfect fit professionally and for my family (my wife, Kristen, and our three children Adam, 3, Emily, 10, and Amy, 14). 

Q: What originally drew you into oncology as a specialty? 

A: “For most of us, cancer has affected someone we love and that triggers an interest. The challenge of conquering cancer has been a driving force for me from my medical school days. 

My friends in medical school would say, ‘Why would you want to do that? It’s so depressing.’ But it’s really the opposite. We have a true sense of triumph against cancer and have the actual data and results to prove it. I enjoy what I do and come to work every day looking forward to taking care of my patients.”

Q: What do you enjoy doing in your time off from work? 

A: “I love running marathons and half-marathons, and I like fitness and sports in general. I’ve played sports like basketball and soccer all my life. But contact sports have become an issue (laughs). In 2002, I broke my arm playing soccer and I was in a cast for two months. Since then, I’ve really focused on running and now I enjoy it. When I don’t do it, I feel odd, as if I haven’t brushed my teeth!” 

Q: What would people be surprised to learn about you? 

A: “I’m a very predictable guy to be honest with you. Huh. (pauses) Should I call my wife?”  He dials his iPhone and soon Kristen is on the line. Her answer is quick: “The biggest thing is how he plays with our son. He’s so great with Adam – people would be amazed at what he does.” 

The Abdallas explain that 3-year-old Adam arrived after they had thought they were finished having children.  

“He’s so academic and so professional, but yet he can go outside, get on the ground and dig in the dirt with Adam. He’s so nurturing, it’s amazing.” 

Dr. Abdalla says, “He was a surprise kid for us – a pleasant surprise!  I can be with him all day and all night and absolutely enjoy every second of it.” 

Bonus round: More on what Dr. Abdalla says people might be surprised to know about him: 

“I like rock music. I picked that up with running. When I drive, I listen to NPR. My girls hate that! But when I run I listen to AC/DC. My favorite band of all time is Dire Straits. I’ve followed Mark Knopfler since the late 80s. I’ve seen him a few times. He’s really awesome.” 

His love of sports has also led to a tradition with friends he’s had since  his residency training: 

“Every year, I go to first and second round March Madness games with three friends. For more than 15 years, we’ve done that every year. Since our days in Chicago, we choose a city and we go. This year, we went to Kansas City. We don’t follow a particular team, we just choose a city and see all the games.”

CQI Daily Management: Boards track positive changes

Leaders on a gemba walk at Cox Monett examine the CQI daily management board mounted in the Radiology department. In pilots at Monett and at Cox South, staff members and leaders have gotten into the habit of reviewing key measures daily and tracking the trends as departments work toward their goals. More boards roll out this month as Scott Rogers, administrative director, Organizational Development; John Chastain, financial analyst; and Stephen Njenga, performance improvement accreditation manager, Cox Monett, lead the effort throughout the system. 

If you’re going to solve a problem, a good way to start is by having it spelled out in front of you, every day. In select departments at Cox Monett and Cox South, staff and leaders have been taking that approach to issues in their areas with a new process known as CQI daily management.

Each day, leaders and staff gather around a tracking board while a staff member explains the top two or three metrics the team is tracking to monitor daily performance and improvements. Maybe they’re looking at staff response times or patient wait times; or the availability of medications or wheelchairs. The entire group hears about whether the department met their goals on the previous day. They see how often the department is hitting its targets and, if they’re falling short, there’s an opportunity to ask why.

The daily check-in is known as a gemba walk – a Japanese term from the Lean process improvement approach developed at Toyota. “Gemba” roughly translates to “where the work is” and the gemba walk takes hospital leaders into departments, where they can see first-hand the issues caregivers are dealing with. The CQI daily management boards offer a granular, front-line look at the incremental changes that form the grassroots of overall process improvement. The tracking boards and the gemba walks are key parts of Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) – the eight-step model CoxHealth uses to solve problems and drive positive change.

CQI daily management creates that change by giving staff members the chance to identify what they want to improve and then providing a tool to measure small changes. The daily reports allow staff and leaders to identify opportunities, spot trends and work across departments and silos to find solutions. Leaders say the approach is a win-win: improvements drive better care and they make the workday easier for staff members.

“The boards can track anything from small satisfaction things to key strategic things. We want to fix the issues that cause people to vent about work every day,” says Scott Rogers, administrative director, Organizational Development, who is heading up the rollout of CQI daily management. “No one in health care ever says they’re tired of caring for patients. They’re tired of the little things that get in the way of doing their work. If we can improve those things, we’ll know we’ve made an impact and made their days better.”

The first tracking boards at CoxHealth were installed in a few key departments – the ED, Lab, Radiology and Med-Surg – at Cox Monett in April. After a pilot there, the first boards were added in six departments at Cox South. Later this month, a second round of boards will be put in place at South.

A typical walk along the four-board route at Cox Monett takes less than 20 minutes. On one day during the pilot, leaders saw how a low stock of medication affected work in the ED and how waiting on test results slowed patient care in Radiology. On each board, the top row shows the previous day’s performance, with the target met, or not. The second row details the trend – how often has the target been missed recently? And beneath that, the third row details the issues – what is preventing the team from hitting the target? Pretty soon, the recurring problems become clear. For the complex issues, staff and leaders form an interdepartmental team to attack the problem.

At Monett, the tracking has made each department more aware of how their work is affecting other areas. For example, one area didn’t know that wheelchair availability was an issue for another department until it popped up on one of the boards. Staff members say the focus on the boards has improved communication and brought departments together.

On the board in the hallway in Radiology, Heidi Elbert and Frankie Smith point out the service metrics the department is tracking. They’ve been working toward exams with no delays for patients. The board shows recent “fallouts” where the goal wasn’t met: a wrong order, a conflict with another exam, a test delayed by waiting on creatinine results. They say the creatinine delay is the one they’re most concerned with. They’ve formed a team with members from Lab, Radiology and leadership to look at the issue and seek out the root cause.

“This breaks down barriers between staff and administration,” Elbert says. “Having the gemba walkers there in front of you is a level playing field.”

“It opens avenues for communication and it gives the staff a chance to feel heard,” Smith says. “It’s healthy for the facility and the organization.”

Those who have the most experience with the CQI process say daily interaction with data both drives improvement and allows staff members to have daily input into how their department is run. The CQI training at CoxHealth has been led by Aaron Ritter and Diane Fritz from the Lean Transformation Team at BJC Healthcare, where a similar tracking process has driven change for years.

“The data tells you what the problem is, rather than going with your gut feeling,” Ritter says. “Instead of placing blame, it moves the action and discussion into the hands of front-line staff members. It creates a village of problem solvers, as opposed to chiefs.”

At Cox South, the pilot of two “routes” of boards is now complete. Leaders and staff members have gotten into the habit of daily gemba walks and Rogers is eager to expand the project to other departments.

“These are living, breathing charts that people are filling out every day,” Rogers says. “That means we have the ability to impact our daily work. Interaction with something detailed and visual like these boards means staff members and leadership are working on fixing problems today, not three weeks from now.”

CARDIAC Kids – healthy fun for your family

This Friday, join us for an evening of fun for kids to learn how to keep their hearts healthy! Get a free pedometer, jump rope and even a basketball or soccer ball. Children ages 6-18 and their parent or guardian are encouraged to come. Stop by between 6 and 7:30 p.m. at the Northview Center at Doling Park, 301 E. Talmage St.

Friday, June 28 
6-7:30 p.m. 
Northview Center at Doling Park 
301 E. Talmage St. 

Parents – you’re encouraged to attend, too! For more information, call 269-KIDS.

The keys to living longer, and living well

Author Dan Buettner speaks to Springfield business leaders during a breakfast meeting held at the Bass Pro White River Conference Center. 

What causes some populations of people to live longer, healthier lives than others? Author Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow, has traveled the planet to uncover the secrets of longevity and happiness, distilling what he learned down to the Power 9 – the nine principles that have helped people in certain areas of the planet, known as Blue Zones, achieve this lifestyle. 

In mid-June, Buettner visited Springfield, speaking at a public event at the O’Reilly Family Event Center on the Drury University Campus. Buettner also shared the results of his research in presentations to Springfield business leaders and leaders at CoxHealth. 

National and local studies consistently show that obesity, heart disease and diabetes are at epidemic levels in the Ozarks and across the United States. Buettner’s message of nine simple steps that can improve your quality of life is designed to encourage us all to put health first. 

Here’s a brief look at the nine principles:

1. Move naturally: The world’s longest-lived people aren’t big on working out, but they do move each day: walking, gardening and working outdoors.

2. Have a purpose: Knowing “why I wake up in the morning” is worth up to seven years of extra life expectancy

3. Down shift: Whether it’s prayer, napping or happy hour, those who live longest have routines to help them shed stress.

4. 80 percent rule: Stop eating when you’re 80 percent full – it can be the difference between losing weight or gaining it. 

5. Plant slant: Beans, including fava, black, soy and lentils, are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets.

6. Wine at 5: Moderate drinkers outlive non-drinkers. The trick is to drink 1-2 glasses per day with friends and/or with food. 

7. Belong: Research shows that attending faith-based services four times per month will add 4-14 years of life expectancy.

8. Loved ones first: Successful centenarians usually commit to a life partner (which can add up to 3 years of life expectancy) and invest in their children with time and love.

9. Right tribe: The world’s longest lived people chose–or were born into–social circles that supported healthy behaviors. Research shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and even loneliness are contagious. So the social networks of long-lived people have favorably shaped their health behaviors.

Buettner told audiences that longevity is about 20 percent genetic and about 80 percent lifestyle and environment. In his work with Blue Zones, he and a team of researchers have found that communities can make environmental changes that can support healthy lifestyles.

“In the areas we’ve studied, longevity happened because people live in environments that nudge them toward moving a little bit more, eating a little bit less, staying engaged, and having a sense of purpose,” Buettner says. 

In communities that have achieved health improvements, leaders have focused on changes such as: creating walkable spaces; keeping parks clean and vibrant; and making fruit and vegetables available and affordable. 

“You optimize the environment by making the active and healthy options the easiest options,” he says.

That message of change was a major driver behind bringing Buettner to Springfield. Brian Williams, vice president, chief business development at CoxHealth, says, “We believe Dan’s visit will help Springfield begin this conversation and set us on the road to the Blue Zones way of life."