Online Workshop: Healthy Aging Across the Lifespan: What Patients Want From Their Healthcare Teams

Workshop Description: Despite the abundance of literature on healthy aging, including the significant role that lifestyle medicine plays in supporting it, there is a paucity of information about what patients want from their healthcare providers to age in a healthy way across their lifespan. This workshop is based on key findings from a qualitative research study that examined common themes regarding the information patients seek, how they wish to be treated, and how they want to participate in their care. It offers healthcare professionals new insights into how they can support patients' healthy aging based on what is most important to the patients themselves. The workshop also offers practical ways to provide this support within the constraints of too many patients and too little time through innovative clinical-community partnership models. Participants will play an active role in the learning process through small-group discussions and large-group sharing. At the start of this workshop, participants will discuss what healthy aging means to them and share what support they want from their healthcare provider to age in a healthy way. We will then compare participant ideas to the findings from our research study, which includes women and men aged 38-88 across different socioeconomic groups. From here, we’ll examine recent research on the pillars of lifestyle medicine and how they optimize health, fulfillment, and longevity across the lifespan. We’ll end with a practical, immersive experience that shows how partnering with community providers can enable healthcare professionals to better support healthy aging in vulnerable populations with chronic disease. Walk away with new insights and actionable ideas to support healthy aging for your patients and clients.