Prescription for Your Health (P4YH)

Description

Roane General Hospital in rural Spencer, West Virginia, created the free Prescription for Your Health (P4YH) to improve patients' health outcomes. Participants meet with a primary care provider, health coach, and fitness trainer and receive a personalized plan of care, health education, and a fitness program.

Prescription for Your Health (P4YH) received funding from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and the Sisters Health Foundation.

Services offered

Any patient can participate, either with a provider referral or a self-referral. Community members who are not current patients can join the program with a referral from their primary care provider.

Participants work with a primary care provider, who develops a personal plan of care. This plan involves setting health goals and scheduling preventive screenings, wellness checks, lab work, and other medical care.

Health coaches provide health education (such as nutrition, healthy cooking, diabetes management, or tobacco cessation classes) and check in four times a year while setting a wellness vision. Health coaches report patients' progress to the primary care provider.

Fitness trainers take measurements like height, weight, blood pressure, and body composition; complete physical tests like balance and grip strength; and create a fitness program. Participants can use the hospital's onsite fitness center and join any group fitness classes. Patients receive a quarterly assessment that measures weight, muscle mass, and body fat, and the fitness trainer can adjust the plan as needed.

This 12-minute video has more information about this program:

Results

There are between 500 and 600 participants currently enrolled in the program.

Roane General Hospital partnered with the West Virginia University Office of Health Services Research to analyze patient data. According to data from March 2026, 44.8% of participants are 55 years old or older, while 28.9% are between ages 35 and 54, 17.6% are aged 18-34, and 8.7% are younger than 18.

Other results:

• The average HbA1C decreased from 6.7% to 6.45% for patients with diabetes.
• For diabetic patients who started the program with HbA1C above 7%, the average HbA1C decreased from 7.52% to 6.87%.
• The average waist circumference decreased from 42.14 inches to 41.77 inches.
• For participants with metabolic syndrome, the average waist circumference decreased from 45.05 inches to 44.57 inches.
• On average, diastolic blood pressure decreased from 79.89 mmHg to 75.71 mmHg for participants with metabolic syndrome.

Patient testimonials from the Prescription for Your Health webpage:

• One patient lost 40 pounds and improved her A1C.
• Another patient said she can do more at 70 years old than she could at 35.
• A Roane General Hospital employee lost 17 pounds and reported having more energy.
• One patient reported more energy and a positive difference in her mental health.
• Another patient joined the program after a hospitalization and lost over 100 pounds.

Challenges

Challenges include data development and tracking.

Replication

Leverage resources and develop strategic partnerships.

Offer services to participants for free, or at least cap the cost of services. Identify opportunities to control program costs, and work with payers to subsidize. Acknowledge patients' social determinants of health.

Assess patients' knowledge of nutrition, fitness, and other aspects of the program so the program becomes personalized and the information is more useful to the individual patient.

Contact Information