The Community Care Hub: Driving Lifestyle Medicine and Building Community Partners

Presentation Summary: Lifestyle Medicine holds immense promise for both reducing healthcare costs and improving clinical outcomes in chronic disease management. However, social determinants of health (SDOH) or healthcare-related social needs (HRSN) remain powerful forces that influence patient well-being and often go unaddressed in conventional care. Although evidence strongly supports lifestyle-based interventions, healthcare systems frequently lack the infrastructure, incentive, or knowledge to fully integrate these approaches into standard practice.

A critical solution lies in community care hubs (CCHs): networks that bridge clinical settings and community-based organizations (CBOs), facilitating access to resources such as healthy food programs, exercise facilities, therapeutic lifestyle change programs, and social support services. This talk will explore existing CCH models, highlighting how a financial “bridge” can leverage healthcare dollars to sustainably fund CBO collaborations. Attendees will learn best practices for building and operating these hubs, including the coordination of multiple CBOs to maximize patient access to lifestyle medicine interventions.

Drawing on real-world examples—such as Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) and other established CBOs—this presentation will also illustrate the benefits of integrating CCHs into healthcare systems. These benefits include more efficient referrals, cross-specialty collaborations, and enhanced patient outcomes through addressing SDOH and lifestyle medicine in tandem. Finally, participants will discover the potential for establishing or expanding their own lifestyle medicine practice by becoming a CCH in their community, thereby positioning themselves as a central resource for addressing both clinical and social needs. By closing the gap between community services and clinical care, CCHs offer a promising framework for the future of lifestyle medicine.