We are joining great cities of the likes of Boston, San Francisco, Toronto, San Diego, Philadelphia and Nashville in holding a HealthCamp in our wonderful city of New Orleans.

HealthCamp is an unconference inspired by the popular BarCamp conferences, which are intended to allow people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

The purpose of the HealthCamp is to bring together health, fitness and wellness professionals in the Greater New Orleans area to share knowledge, network, and open dialogues around the challenges, issues, and concerns they face every day.  As well as, brainstorm, explore and discuss solutions, ideas and the latest innovations, policies and technology available.

An unconference means that the attendees are the presenters – this is a user generated conference.  There is no keynote speaker and planned agenda for the day.  However, we are establishing some guidelines and tracks.

HealthCamp NOLA will explore 4 different tracks:

Technology

Sessions in the technology track will vary from discussing improving or extending the efficacy of health care by embracing social networks, open standards, and the latest web and mobile technologies to new breakthroughs and latest technology available or being developed that will change the way health services are provided.

Prevention/Wellness:

Sessions in the prevention and wellness track will focus on discussing and addressing what can be done in our community to educate, assist, motivate and encourage people to take preventive measures to prevent diseases and health problems. What can be done?  What are the biggest factors affecting the members of our community? How can health care and fitness professionals best support and help each other? Etc.

Policy

Sessions in the policy track will focus and vary from discussing federal, State and city policy that impact health and wellness providers.  This could include anything from funding issues and concerns, privatization of local hospitals, and the impact of the Health Care Reform Bills recently signed by President Obama.

Business

Session in the business track is to discuss the state of health and wellness businesses, opportunities and entrepreneurship in the health and wellness industry.  What opportunities exist in New Orleans? What type of businesses already exist – what makes them successful?

This will be an extremely beneficial event to all health, fitness and wellness professionals in the Greater New Orleans area – the energy, opportunities and networking generated from unconferences can’t be compared to anything else you have attended in the past.

Our first priority in bringing this event to New Orleans is finding a location that can support 100-150 attendees.  A space with 4-5 classrooms.  The event will be held on a Saturday.

As soon as we have reserved a location, we will accept sponsorships.  Sponsors are critical to make this a free event for attendees.  The sponsorship will be used to pay for the food for the day, possibly the facility and t-shirts.  NO MONEY is made by the organizers of this event – this event is being organized by volunteers…currently myself and Tung Ly; assisting us is the HealthCamp Organizer Mark Scrimshire.

You can stay abreast of what’s happening by joining our Facebook Group and following us on Twitter.

I’m not that old and I didn’t grow up on a farm…yet I remember the saying “If you don’t have your health; you don’t have nothing at all.”  I remember my dad telling me that. He wasn’t or isn’t a sick man but he is a self-employed man; he owns a construction company. His health is very important to him because without his health/ability to put in a hard day’s work – he doesn’t make money.

The saying also definitely applied more in the old days – when most people did some sort of physical labor as the primary way to earn a living. If people were sick or injured, they couldn’t perform their work duties and they didn’t get paid.  The incentives to be healthy were far greater (survival) and by default of performing physical/manual labor people were more active.  Times have changed.  Technology has changed the way we earn a living and most people in developed countries can perform their job while being overweight, out-of-shape, and plagued with chronic diseases, etc. Most people don’t care about their health.  It’s obvious when looking at the results of studies. Louisiana ranked 41 out 50 on the 2009 Well Being State Ranking. #1 being the best – 50 the worst. From Gallup and Healthways Well Being Index (Click on the image for larger image)

Merging decades of social and clinical research, development expertise, health leadership and behavioral economics, Gallup and Healthways collaborated to develop the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (WBI) – the first and largest survey of its kind, aggregating data from 1,000 calls a day, 350 days a year. The Well-Being Index is already the largest behavioral economic database ever created and, over the next quarter century, will generate more than nine million individual responses.

The Well-Being Index and associated City, State and Congressional District Reports provide the only measurement today for total well-being. Beyond medical condition and access to healthcare coverage and services, the Index also questions respondents about economic, professional, emotional and social circumstances. With Well-Being Index data, it’s possible to quantify and establish a correlation between the places where people work and the communities in which they live and their well-being.

Some more results were released today.

The County Health Rankings—the first set of reports to rank the overall health of every county in all 50 states—were released today by the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at a briefing in Washington, D.C.  The 50 state reports help public health and community leaders, policy-makers, consumers and others to see how healthy their county is, compare it with others within their state and find ways to improve the health of their community.

Each county is ranked within the state on how healthy people are and how long they live. They also are ranked on key factors that affect health such as: smoking, obesity, binge drinking, access to primary care providers, rates of high school graduation, rates of violent crime, air pollution levels, liquor store density, unemployment rates and number of children living in poverty.

Poorly ranked counties often had multiple challenges to overcome, including:

• Two- and three-fold higher rates of premature death, often from preventable conditions.
• High smoking rates that lead to cancer, heart disease, bronchitis and emphysema.
• High rates of obesity which can put people at risk for diabetes, disability and heart disease.
• High unemployment and poverty rates.
• High numbers of liquor stores and fast-food outlets but few places to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

Read More from the Press Release

Now, if only Gov. Bobby Jindal would have a look at this study and stop his plans for cuts to health care…

Here’s a look at the results for Health Outcomes.  For the Greater New Orleans area St. Tammany Parish was #1, Jefferson #16 and Orleans and St Bernard 59 and 62 respectively.  Interesting disparity between those…any thoughts of why? (Click on the map for larger image)

And the results for Health Factors: For the Greater New Orleans area St. Tammany Parish was #1, Jefferson #5 and Orleans and St Bernard 47 and 59 respectively. (Click on the map for larger image)

For greater details of the overall rankings and finer details check this out.

I normally don’t write posts this long…but this is serious – we have to start going to back to the mentality: If you don’t have your health; you don’t have anything at all.

Be Fit NOLA is a resource to help you be and stay healthy – we are a preventive care resource…we promote living a healthy lifestyle through proper diet, exercise and stress management in order to prevent the development of illnesses and sickness.  If you do get sick, we are not a health care resource or provider but thankfully the State of Louisiana has you covered.

From Stay Healthy Louisiana

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals recently launched http://www.healthfinderla.gov, a comprehensive online resource that allows users to compare cost and quality of services offered by hospitals, nursing homes, and public and private health care plans. The site also helps you compare retail prices for the 100 most commonly prescribed drugs.

I visited the site and was pleased by how well organized, informative and helpful the site is.  Just like GNOCommunity.org which I covered in this post; this is another well thought out site that is designed to properly serve the community (State).

I’m quite impressed with GNOCommunity.org.  As soon as you land on the site – it grabs your interest and you quickly realize what a priceless resource the site is when looking for a quality healthcare center.

What is GNOCommunity.org?

GNOCommunity.org is a service dedicated to helping individuals find a quality healthcare center that fits their needs. There are over 90 community-based medical centers, 40 of which offer primary care services. These medical clinics are funded in part by the Primary Care Access and Stabilization Grant, a program designed to meet the increasing demand for quality healthcare services in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish. Other services include mental health and substance abuse services, dental care and more.

Most of the medical centers listed on this site accept private and public health insurance, or payments can be made on an income-based sliding fee scale. It is quality healthcare everyone can afford.

Interactive Map

The interactive map and listed detailed information for the health care provider are what the site is all about.  You can have a look at all 90 New Orleans community-based medical centers or further narrow down your search by the type of healthcare provider you are looking for: Adult Primary Care, Pediatric Primary Care, OB Services, Dental Services, Counseling Services and Substance Psychiatric Services Abuse Services.  Next, you can further narrow down your searches by how many miles away from your zip code you’re willing to travel.

Once you hit the search button; you get a list of your results both plotted on the map and with additional information to include address, hours of operation, services they provide, if they service the uninsured, Medicaid, Medicare, accept credit cards, website link (if applicable) and even what languages are spoken at the center.

GNOCommunity.org is brought to you by the Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI)

If you find yourself in need of a health care provider – you would be a fool to not make use of GNOCommunity.org