Heartbeats of Health: Empowering Communities through Physical Activity with Dr. Esmaeli Porsa

On this episode of Inside the Texas Heart Studio, Dr. Joseph G. Rogers sits down with special guest Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, President and CEO of Harris Health, to explore the profound impact of physical activity on community health. 

They will discuss:

• Innovative programs at Harris Health, such as the #WALK30 Campaign and The Food Farmacy program.
• How these initiatives not only improve physical well-being but also address health disparities and empower individuals to take charge of their health journey. 

For more information regarding #WALK30, visit  texasheart.org/tag/walk30

Watch the sit-down interview here.

Watch On Demand Videos on Texas Heart TV

Visit Our Website: texasheart.org

Chapters

• 1:56 Impact and Health Promotion
• 7:08 Physical Activity

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Joe Rogers president and CEO of the Texas Heart Institute. And

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 I'm joined here today by Dr. Esmel Portia. Who is

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 the president and CEO of Paris Health. Thanks for

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 joining us today. No, thank you for having me. It's an honor

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 and our pleasure. We've had some time to visit

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 before we came into the studio to talk about exercise in

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 our personal lives and also in our professional lives and

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 I'd like to start with the latter and here

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 a little bit about the kinds of things that

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 you're thinking about or that you're doing in

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 Harris Health not only with your employees,

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 but even with the patients who come to Harris Health

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 to seek care that might activate them to be more physically

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 active. Yeah. Well, thank you for that question. Really really

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 proud of what you're doing.

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Definitely for our employees but for our community as

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 well, so I'll start with that as first as far as the activating our

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 patients as you

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 know, we take care of a segment of

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 our population. Who is this portion of the impacted

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 by all the negative Health disparities that

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 everybody knows about you know, majority of our patients are Hispanic, but

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 you're of our patients more than half are any short are under

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 insured?

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So it's a difficult population to begin with

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 in terms of access to care and based on

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 health status. But to answer your

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 question about you know, activating them is first identifying what

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 it is that our patients need but not every

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person who comes to us has the same needs so, you know doing it.

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And meaningful and respectful screening

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 for what their needs are and

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 what we identify them.

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Try to discern if this is something that b have

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 yourself system can do ourselves or is this something that we

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 need to connect our patients to someone who's

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 delivering that service or is this something that we can't do in Partnership?

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I'm going to give an example really proud

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 of our food Pharmacy programs.

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This is a program that was started a few years. They went actually has one

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 several national awards me identify patients

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 were coming to us specific or diabetic patients

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 who screen positive for food insecurity. There's

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 only a couple of questions that we ask them if

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 the answer to each our question, yes, or maybe they screen

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 positive or A Food Pharmacy.

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Our physicians want somebody experience positive

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 actually write them a prescription for food.

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That person actually walks to our food Pharmacy meets

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 with the social worker and a dietitian The dietitian

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 walks them through our food Pharmacy, which is

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 basically a small grocery store.

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And the reason for that were accompanying the patient throughout Food

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 Pharmacy is to actually educate the patient as the patient is

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 walking through the

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so-called the grocery store. What foods are

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 really good for them what they should stick

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 with but they should stay away from

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but in addition to that then we have also a culinary program

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 in partnership with one of the local schools verbio

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 teaching patients how to

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 prepare those meals that are culturally agreeable

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 to them into their families.

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We provide them 30 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables every other

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 week. The program is the nine months program.

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At the end of the nine months patients who continue to

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 be food insecure Idris state

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 with us, or we can refer to local food

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 pantries. So they can continue that Journey what we

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 have seen through this program this activation is

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 that they not only

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their hemo Point A1C which is the measure of

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 diabetes control.

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Not only those numbers improve significantly.

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But really really interestingly enough if that diabetic patient

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 is outside got hypertension, if that diabetic patient

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 also has asthma CPD those conditions improve

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 not that necessarily the diet had

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 anything to do with it, which I think they do. What is the fact that

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 the patient has been activated and now the field

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 empowered to take care of themselves to those

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 people end up having higher touches with Harris

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 health or they being seen more frequently because

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 they're enrolled in the yes, because

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 they are coming to our facilities every two weeks for

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 the fresh food and vegetable. So yes, and

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 no. Yes with the dietitian and the social workers the

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 community health workers, but not necessarily there healthcare

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 provider staff you obviously have practiced

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 medicine and a well considered

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 internist.

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What what would you recommend for our

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 colleagues who are seeing patients in terms

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 of trying to understand physical activity

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 in the patients? We

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 see in the office every day. Is there a tool that you are using?

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We do assess the level of

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 physical activity. I don't know if you actually do a formal assessment

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 like we do for our food insecurity.

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but to your bigger question about the impact of exercise and

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 you know

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The way I look at this. Is that the way I

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 describe it. Is that b?

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When we talk about Healthcare you and I and everybody majority

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 people were watching us.

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Let me say health care, you know, they they imagine doctors and

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 nurses and Clinics and hospitals.

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And it's unfortunate because really what

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 we should be concerned about what we should be focusing on.

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is not

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what is happening right now, which is instead of healthcare is really just this management

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 writing we care about disease patients. We you

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 know, we wait for the people to come to us with hypertension diabetes

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 or maybe out of control we treat them.

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Sometimes in the clinic sometimes in the hospital they get better. They

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 go their way. We wait for them to come

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 back to us again with an element so we

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 can treat them and go back and we continue this this circle.

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What I like to do what I like to focus on instead is not so much

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 disease management but health promotion.

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And this is prevention and you know, I always

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 say that.

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You know, we may not be able to prevent every illness.

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 We may not be able to prevent diabetes. We may

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 not be able to prevent hypertension.

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But through taking care of taking better care of our communities

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 if we can postpone the onset of

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 diabetes if he can postpone the onset of hypertension by

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 five years by 10 years.

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The impact on the lifestyle of the

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 person the longevity of our patients and the

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 reduction in the cost of care.

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I think would be tremendous. I agree with you.

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 I I mean, I think this concept of health promotion and

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 integrating that into a healthcare setting

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 is absolutely the way we should be be moving.

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 I saw a paper a couple

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 of weeks ago that was published that looked at steps the

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 number of steps people took and they broke them

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 out into Turtles.

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And and especially in individuals over the age of

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 60. There was a very very clear dose relationship

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 between the number of steps one

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 took and the number of cardiovascular events that

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 subsequently occurred.

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And I was thinking about it this morning almost wonder if

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 we should be thinking about steps as

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 the next Vital sign, you know

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 that we are thinking about it. Just like we think about blood pressure

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 and heart rate and and temperature.

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Maybe we should be thinking about integrating physical

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 activity in that same way

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 and make it part of every encounter

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 that we have with patients in

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 medical offices. That is really intriguing. I completely agree

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 with you and I think actually

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we should do that. You know, like I said at the very beginning I

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proud Pride hair herself system of

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 pride myself

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and being one of the healthiest employers large Employers

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 in the state of Texas and in the country.

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And also a healthcare system

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 that is high on the equity scale.

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I really believe you are onto something about including

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 a physical activity as the sixth or

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 seventh or whatever you are right now Vital sign because if

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 we are truly committed to the Mantra

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 of

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health promotion and disease prevention

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That's what we should be looking at. Right it's not it's

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 not so much that their blood pressure and the pulses are

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 important, but how active our patients, you know, what type

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 of activities not everybody can be we

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 can Warrior but what kind of activities can our patients engage

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 in right and it's just like everything else in life.

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Moderation right that there may

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 not be able to walk for an hour, but you know kind of work for 10

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 minutes.

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That is impactful. Yes, and I thought you were going to refer to this study about

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 you know, the the relationship between walking the initial

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 size and actually onset of Alzheimer's disease because that's

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 always been shot. It really doesn't matter what this is

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 conditioning look at it seems like it it always pans out

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 that exercise especially walking since you're

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 talking about steps has so

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 many different positive impacts. I'm not

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 just your physical health and your mental health, but are

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 truly believe it also positively infectious spiritual health

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So yeah, you're right. I agree with you.

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Listen, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you here at the

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 Texas Heart Institute, and to stop and visit and and you're welcome

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 back anytime. Thank you, and I look forward to continuing our

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 collaborations and discussions about ways. We can improve the

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 health of the community. So, thanks again for joining us. I

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 appreciate that. It's an honor. Thank you. Thank you.