Cox, Mercy collaborate on 'blue zones'

Springfield hospitals CoxHealth and Mercy are working together to promote a June 11 visit by a New York Times best-selling author as a way to improve the health of the community.

Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest,” is visiting Springfield on June 11, and will serve as the featured speaker at a breakfast event for business leaders and an afternoon community health conference. In between, Buettner has scheduled trips to Mercy Hospital Springfield and Cox South to tour their facilities and talk with hospital officials.

Buettner, a writer for National Geographic, traveled the globe to unlock the secrets to so-called “blue zones” – five identified areas where life expectancy far surpasses averages and where residents often live 100 years or more. In the book, he distilled what he learned into nine secrets to health, happiness and longevity, what he calls the Power 9.

Common traits include a sense of purpose; natural activities such as growing gardens and walking frequently rather than running marathons; little consumption of red meat; and faith and family traditions.

The regions he identified were: the Barbagia region of Sardinia, which boasts the world’s largest concentration of centenarians; Ikaria, Greece, an Aegean island with the world’s lowest rates of dementia; Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica, which has the world’s lowest middle-age mortality rate; Loma Linda, Calif., where a high concentration of Seventh-day Adventists outlive their North American peers by 10 years; and Okinawa, Japan, where females live 86 years on average, one of the world’s highest life expectancies. The “blue zones” term was coined by demographers while mapping one of the regions on the island of Sardinia.

Brian Williams, vice president and chief of business development at CoxHealth, said Cox worked to bring the author to town after CoxHealth Network advisory board members read “The Blue Zones.”

“Last year, that advisory group started talking about new and creative ideas that could give people the resources to improve their health,” Williams said. “Ultimately, the best way for us to achieve accountable care as a nation is to all live healthier and make lifestyle changes that would enhance our health.”

Williams said the speaking engagements are designed to make people aware of steps they can make to become healthier. He said he didn’t know if local civic leaders would have any interest in becoming designated a “healthy city.”

“Right now, we just want to expose business leaders and community leaders to the concept of blue zones,” Williams said, declining to disclose the cost to bring Buettner to town.

The first city in the U.S. to be designated as a healthy city through the Blue Zone Project was Albert Lea, Minn., according to BlueZones.com.

Before achieving the designation in 2009, residents of the 18,000 population city committed for one year to making improvements in four areas: diet, activity, relationships and purpose. As a result, the city added workplace wellness policies, revised restaurant menus and vending machine offerings, and established community gardens, hiking trails and walking clubs, including groups of students who normally rode a school bus.

In a year, participants collectively lost 12,000 pounds, employee absenteeism dropped by a reported 21 percent, life expectancy increased by three years based on Vitality Compass calculations and city employees showed a 40 percent decrease in their health care costs, according to BlueZones.com.

Chantel Gebhard, vice president of human resources for American Dehydrated Foods Inc. and International Dehydrated Food Inc., is on the CoxHealth Network’s advisory board.

Inspired by the book, Gebhard has implemented a wellness strategy for her employer’s roughly 500 employees that includes fitness-center reimbursement eligibility for all associates.

She said the companies have performed health-risk assessments and brought in a chef to advise employees how to make quick and healthy meals.

Mercy Hospital Springfield President Dr. Rob Steele said the Mercy system has a business partnership with Franklin, Tenn.-based health-solutions company Healthways (Nasdaq: HWAY), which promotes community well-being improvements through its Blue Zones Project.

In November, Mercy and Healthways entered into an agreement to identify potential market opportunities and work together to develop strategies to manage the health of populations. Steele said populations are defined as employees of a particular company or individuals within a given age range. With CoxHealth’s efforts to bring Buettner to Springfield, Steele said the health care providers decided to work together to organize the events. Insurer Anthem Blue-Cross Blue Shield also is a sponsor of the event.

“The first step to doing anything communitywide is just understanding the concept,” Steele said. “Right now, this is just about bringing Dan Buettner in.

“Where it goes from here is a much bigger question.”

Gebhard said she hopes Buettner’s visit helps raise awareness.

“It doesn’t have to be extreme. You can make small changes in your lifestyle that can increase your overall quality of life,” she said.