A Patient Is a Person is a series about how whole-person health is transforming the patient journey. It is supported by funding from UPIC Health.

Am I healthy?

It’s the question that launched a zillion Google searches. Superfoods. Supplements. High intensity interval training. The ever elusive eight hours of sleep. We tend to assign this assembly line mentality to our health: avocados in, lower cholesterol out. But, more and more, we’re learning that such thinking fails to appreciate what health really is.

Health is your housing, your job, and the transportation that gets you between the two. It’s your social connections, your media diet, and the city, state and country you live in. It’s how you spend your time: on a pickleball court, a church pew or an Instagram feed. The more we learn about human health, the larger the array of impacts becomes.

“Whole-person health” is an emerging approach that reflects this. It views a person’s physical, mental, emotional and social wellness as not just relevant, but connected. This growing recognition presents a challenge, because most health care systems weren’t designed to take all those factors into account, much less offer dynamic treatments for them. Hospitals, clinics and insurance companies often take a mechanic’s approach to “fixing” patients. Even preventative care is usually focused on a narrow band of conventional concerns like exercise, nutrition and alcohol. 

But this is beginning to change. Some health care systems are starting to integrate aspects of whole-person health. Other efforts are occurring at the grassroots level, as organizations and advocates bring whole-person health directly into their communities. In fact, we’ve written about some of these efforts in the past, such as social prescriptions that treat loneliness, and farms in the Netherlands where people with dementia can live, work and thrive.

Over the next six months, our newest series, A Patient Is a Person, will explore the surprising, innovative ways whole-person health is transforming the patient journey and improving our overall well-being. We’ll take a long stroll with a walking therapy group, visit a museum under doctor’s orders, and inhabit the cozy environs of a home that is literally warmed by prescription. We may even learn how reading this series could lead to a healthier you.

This series is sponsored by UPIC Health. To learn more about our funder-supported content, read our Editorial Independence Policy.