Life Time Fitness, Chanhassen, MN, is partnering with Allina Hospitals & Clinics on several initiatives to improve the wellness of the communities that Allina serves.

Life Time and the not-for-profit family of hospitals, clinics and other care services throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin will provide integrated community health and wellness programs to the community with the goals of reducing overall health care costs and improving access to preventative health and wellness education and services. As part of the effort, Allina physicians will be connected to Life Time destinations in Minnesota to provide medical education and counseling to Life Time members and staff and medical services for Life Time endurance events. The organizations will explore opportunities to inject health and fitness expertise into traditional health care delivery.

The partnership launched with the introduction of Life Time Fitness’ myHealthCheck to more than 600 Allina staff and physicians. myHealthCheck is a health and wellness assessment and health promotion program that identifies risk factors and promotes ongoing guidance with wellness coaches. The program includes a 12-month reassessment to measure results against goals. It evaluates employees’ health, wellness, fitness level and lifestyle through blood work, metabolic testing and wellness coaching, while providing each individual with a personalized health profile to set personalized goals and measure progress. Users can track their exercise, nutrition, weight loss and more through their personal myHealthCheck online dashboard. Additionally, each myHealthCheck participant receives relevant on-line risk specific communication, can participate in wellness coaching sessions and receive ongoing guidance from Life Time health and nutrition professionals.

“The comprehensive nature of this program makes it an outstanding solution for Allina, and we believe the results provided to our employees will translate into actionable behavior change,” says Kenneth H. Paulus, president and CEO of Allina Hospitals & Clinics. “We finally are getting to the core issues of employee health, which has a direct relationship to staff engagement and productivity, not to mention health care costs. We plan on applying the lessons we learn from this partnership to our broader mission of keeping our community healthy.”

The two organizations also plan to identify specific, community-focused opportunities to provide additional access to health and wellness services, including healthy nutrition, active living and life balance education and awareness. Additional planned areas of collaboration include offering health and fitness training, education and equipment to identified school districts, police and fire departments.

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