A Family Story
Bob and Linda are two real-life clients who-because of the complexities of their conditions, age and goals-exemplify the need for personal health portfolios.
When they were first introduced to the health portfolio concept four years ago, Bob was 54 years old and ran a successful family business started by his father. It was a high-stress job that involved long hours and extensive travel, a combination that took a toll on his health. He was overweight and took multiple medications for high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol and pre-diabetes.
Linda was 49 and the family CEO whose primary job was "keeping everything together." It was a high-stress assignment that included overseeing health care issues of other family members. Their oldest daughter, away at graduate school, had been recently diagnosed with debilitating depression, Bob's father was in transition care recovering from a hip fracture, and Linda's older sister was in remission following treatment for breast cancer. Like Bob, Linda was dealing with her own multiple health issues, including high blood pressure, diabetes and elevated cholesterol.
Bob and Linda's situation was not unlike many middle-aged couples that find themselves the de facto overseers of the well-being of multiple generations. When Bob and Linda had financial concerns, they called their financial advisor. But when it came to health management, they were managing their issues themselves. Their health management was essentially an ad hoc system that resembled a second occupation. What they needed was a broad-based approach that mirrored how they managed their finances, and they found it with the personal health portfolio system.
The process began with the family health advisor having one-on-one conversations with Bob and Linda about "big picture" issues on health, aging and quality of life. The conversations gave them a chance to reconsider and reframe the quality of life they wanted now and in the future.
By using integrative health histories, personal inventories and an in-depth review of their medical records, the family health advisor mapped out a holistic summary of their current health. She used colors to classify their health priorities as low (green), medium (yellow) and red (high). This provided the framework for setting realistic goals, measuring progress and reducing Bob and Linda's health management burden.
Setting up these health portfolios was transformative to both Bob and Linda because it enabled them for the first time to map out their health goals. They for the first time had a personalized "game plan" to help protect their health and improve their quality of life. The following are the family health advisor's initial findings and recommendations for Bob and Linda as part of their personal health portfolio:
Prevention
The goal of the prevention sector within a personal health portfolio is to identify health risk factors and strategies for eliminating or reducing them. In Bob's case, he wanted to improve his health by adopting a new, integrated wellness plan. His last complete physical was more than two years prior, and his health care was fragmented. Plus, he didn't have a good rapport with his primary care physician.
Bob was also deeply worried about the risk of heart disease given his family history, high stress levels and known cardiac risk factors (hypertension, elevated cholesterol levels and pre-diabetes).
In response, the family health advisor developed a list of wellness programs that matched Bob's health goals and emphasized lifestyle solutions, as well as medications for managing hypertension, elevated cholesterol and pre-diabetes. She also developed a list of top-rated board certified internists with reputations for exceptional patient rapport, scheduled interviews with Bob's top choices, and selected a wellness program and a new primary care physician.