In the 40+ years I’ve been practicing, recent clinician interest in providing obesity care has soared off the charts.
I see it in the varied healthcare professional groups I speak to at conferences and through lectures and podcasts.
Though the exciting new obesity medications may be what spurred initial interest, clinicians are also seeking guidance on how to counsel patients to improve patient outcomes.
To meet this growing demand for information and practical guidance, I wrote Patient-Centered Weight Management: The Six Factor Professional Program and Toolkit, just published by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
In this blog, I discuss obesity care practice tips for clinicians:
1-Rethink the Patient Visit
With all the clinical and administrative activities required during a patient visit, the patient care setting has so many competing challenges.
Discussing one’s weight journey can also be a sensitive topic. The words clinicians use matter.
This is why I recommend scheduling a weight management focused visit.
This allows time for an empathetic encounter that includes a full assessment and initiation of a treatment plan.
My book’s professional program and toolkit offers a roadmap of how to do so.
2-Use Phenotyping to Personalize Obesity Care
Phenotyping is a process whereby people are clustered into subgroups that have similar characteristics.
It allows us to use a more targeted therapeutic approach that meets the specific needs of the subgroup.
But how do you identify these phenotypes?
We developed a scientifically-validated 27-item self-administered Six Factor Questionnaire that can quickly distinguish which of the 6 phenotypes (or factors) are most pertinent for each patient.
And by using preselected counseling tips and downloadable patient educational handouts, patients receive support that is tailormade to their specific concerns.
3-Improve Lifestyle Modification Counseling Skills
Busy clinicians need a counseling framework for treating patients with overweight and obesity.
Here’s where the book provides a valuable resource of counseling techniques as well as lifestyle modification strategies that have been shown to be realistic, practical and effective.
The factor specific handouts, downloadable for both clinicians and patients, cover all aspects of lifestyle modification counseling.
This can help clinicians target each patient’s specific needs whether they are taking an obesity medication or not.
We can’t expect each clinician to be an expert in every aspect of lifestyle modification counseling. And with the right tools, they don’t have to be.
To learn more about Patient-Centered Weight Management, you can read my author Q&A here.
Photo credit: Walter Ejnes
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Robert Kushner, MD
