Health and Wellness Coaching in Serving the Needs of Today’s Patients: A Primer for Healthcare Professionals

Abstract

The past six decades have been marked by leaps and bounds in medical advances, while concurrently clinical outcomes and the quality of life continued to lag or decline. There is a need for more comprehensive approaches to delivering healthcare to patients that address illness and wellness within and outside healthcare settings. Mounting evidence shows that making sustainable changes in healthcare requires approaching patients’/individuals’ care as a continuum—within and outside healthcare settings—while addressing their capacity (ie ability) and workload (ie demands) and incorporating their values and preferences. Health and Wellness Coaching (HWC) has been proposed as a solution to create partnerships to empower individuals to take ownership, leadership, and accountability of their well-being, using nondirective, empathic, and mindful conversations that employ motivational-interviewing and evidence-based approaches. Insufficient clarity exists among healthcare professionals in understanding the definition, roles, and types of HWC. This primer summarizes HWC concepts and history and compares HWC types and its potential role in promoting, supporting, and improving the well-being, clinical outcomes, and quality of life of the pertinent stakeholders. This primer also highlights current and potential areas of application of HWC within different subpopulations and healthcare-related settings.

The Role of the Health Coach in a Global Pandemic

“…The profession of health coaching has made great strides in the past twelve years with a growing body of research that examines its effectiveness in eliciting and sustaining healthy behavior changes. [32][33][34][35][36][37] About 150 datasupported studies are listed in the Compendium of the Health and Wellness Coaching Literature. 31 Health coaching to reduce the burden of chronic disease is gaining acceptance among primary care providers.…”

Bridging Intention and Action for Employee Well-Being Using the Intentional Action (InAct) Process: Workshop-Lecture Series

“…If further needed, ongoing individualized HWC may be pursued to support employees to re-evaluate their needs, values, and goals over time and within the context of their lives. 5 …”

“…If further needed, ongoing individualized HWC may be pursued to support employees to re-evaluate their needs, values, and goals over time and within the context of their lives. 5 The InAct framework is designed from the outset in a scalable, user-friendly format to support individuals as they reflect, prioritize, set goals, and take action to improve their personal well-being. InAct offers a translatable way of disseminating broader employee wellbeing and could be a continuous, annual offering within institutional employee wellbeing programs, providing sustainable and meaningful feedback about potential barriers and opportunities to employers.…”

“… 5 There is a substantially growing evidence base of varying value and impact integrating HWC in EWP, on improving different aspects of employees’ well-being, reducing stress and burnout, and increasing joy, engagement, and even healthcare savings. 5 However, there is limited evidence of using scalable and user-friendly HWC-based interventions to improve HCPs wellbeing on a broader scale.…”

“…4 Health and Wellness Coaching (HWC) is a growing field within employee wellness programs (EWPs) that uses person-centric behavioral strategies including motivational-interviewing, reflective and empathetic listening, mindfulness, resiliency training, emotional intelligence, problem-solving, and goal-setting strategies to adopt and enact sustainable behaviors and actions, and to foster accountability. 5 There is a substantially growing evidence base of varying value and impact integrating HWC in EWP, on improving different aspects of employees' well-being, reducing stress and burnout, and increasing joy, engagement, and even healthcare savings. 5 However, there is limited evidence of using scalable and user-friendly HWC-based interventions to improve HCPs wellbeing on a broader scale.…”