New Electronic Health Records Incentive Program Includes Obesity Measures
By Casey Langwith and Anna Muldoon, Members of The George Washington University’s Research Team for the STOP Obesity Alliance
Obesity GPS: A Guide for Policy and Program Solutions
The STOP Obesity Alliance Health & Wellness Chairperson, 17th U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard H. Carmona, facilitated a panel discussion for the launch of the Obesity GPS – featuring the Alliance’s Director, Christine Ferguson, the American Medical Group Association’s Julie Sanderson-Austin, and the American Heart Association’s Dr. John Ring.
Purpose Statement
The Strategies to Overcome and Prevent (STOP) Obesity Alliance is a collaboration of consumer, provider, government, labor, business, health insurers and quality-of-care organizations united to drive innovative and practical strategies that combat obesity.
The Alliance's goal is to help reverse America's rising trend in obesity and related conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers by:
- Identifying and breaking down cultural and systemic biases around obesity;
- Re-defining success as sustained weight loss based on health rather than only by societal norms;
- Highlighting research-based initiatives and technologies to improve prevention and care; and
- Identifying, recommending and promoting innovations in community, employer, and healthcare delivery and financing systems.
The STOP Obesity Alliance will foster change in society's perceptions of, and approaches to, preventing and treating obesity in the context of the real-world environment in which we live.
The STOP Obesity Alliance operates out the Department of Health Policy of The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS), under the direction of Christine Ferguson, J.D. a Professor of GW University and the former Commissioner of the Department of Public Health for the State of Massachusetts.