AUGUSTA - Mayo Regional Hospital of Dover-Foxcroft is one of 10 healthcare organizations in Maine to receive a recognition award from the Maine Center for Public Health for outstanding leadership to promote healthy weight and improve the prevention, screening and management of obesity.
The award presentation was made March 10 in Augusta during the launch of “Weighing Action,” a statewide initiative to develop specific actions and clinical strategies to address the epidemic of obesity in Maine.
Accepting the award for Mayo were David McDermott, M.D., a family practice physician at Dover-Foxcroft Family Medicine and a leader of the Piscataquis County Youth Overweight Collaborative, and Tom Lizotte, Director of Marketing and Development at Mayo and the hospital’s liaison to the Piscataquis Public Health Council.
Other organizations receiving recognition were the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center, Eastern Maine Medical Center, Franklin Community Health Network, Maine Osteopathic Association, MaineGeneral Medical Center, the MaineHealth system, Redington-Fairview General Hospital, Sisters of Charity Health System and Southern Maine Medical Center.
Organizations collaborating on the “Weighing Action” initiative have agreed to commit to undertake specific improvements in the management of obesity. They will:
- Promote agreed upon, consistent healthy weight messages within their communities and encourage physicians and other clinicians to provide leadership using those messages both locally and statewide.
- Adopt system policies and protocols within the organization that encourage nutritional choices, physical activity and healthy weight among employees, patients and the community.
- Identify and explore key ways for physicians to leverage their influence at the community level to build an environment in which good nutrition and regular physical activity are supported.
- Educate and train providers to use Body Mass Index (BMI) as an effective assessment tool and initiate discussion with patients to effectively address overweight.
- Work toward development of consistent tracking of BMI and key data elements to track healthy weight.
The Maine Bureau of Health in 2003 reported that 40% of kindergartners were overweight or classified as at risk of becoming overweight. The probability of childhood overweight persisting into adulthood increases to approximately 80% by adolescence. The Maine Center for Public Health reports the potential future health care costs associated with pediatric overweight are “staggering and may exceed those of cigarette smoking.”