Digital in action: Finding wellness centers in your backyard

February 1, 2024

Providence Digital Innovation Group

[4 MIN READ]

If your New Year’s resolution involves getting healthier, it’s easier to meet your goals if there’s a fitness or wellness center close to your home.
Providence’s Digital Innovation Group is helping make your goals more achievable with a new feature in the Providence app that connects you to nearby Providence wellness centers.
Read on to learn how to find Providence wellness centers near you.

Hitting the gym, practicing mindfulness and eating healthier can improve your physical health, mental health and overall well-being. You’re more likely to access wellness resources, like gyms, nutrition services or physical therapy, if it’s close by. If you set a New Year’s resolution around improving your well-being, finding that wellness center close to home can be an important part of succeeding in your goals. Fortunately, Providence’s Digital Innovation Group (DIG) is here to help. To support your healthy lifestyle, the team developed a new way to find Providence-sponsored wellness centers close to you using the Providence app.

“Providence thinks about our patients as whole people, so we’re interested in whole health beyond clinical interactions,” says Andy Chu, the senior vice president of product and technology incubation for Providence. “From prevention tips to wellness programs, these Providence-associated centers help patients take control over their own health. We’re proud to deliver resources, programs and services continuously and automatically for patients through the Providence app.”

This feature relies on geotargeting, which links your location with nearby Providence-associated wellness resources. When patients are in the Providence app and within 25 miles of a Providence-associated wellness center, they will see a card with information about nearby wellness centers, including location hours and directions as well as relevant offers for free or discounted classes. If a patient travels to a new area, they will see new cards for wellness centers in their new location.

Providence operates or is partnering with wellness centers in Oregon, Washington and California and continues to add new wellness centers over time.

Wellness, when and where it is convenient

Wellness centers support community engagement and health, and connecting patients to these locations digitally helps improve access to these venues. Providence operates and partners with wellness centers that support physical well-being and emotional health for people of all capabilities.

“Our mission is to support clients in achieving their health goals through lifestyle-based strategies such as healthy eating, movement and mobility, stress resilience and social connections,” says Megan Wroe, wellness manager and registered dietitian at Providence St. Jude Medical Center’s Wellness Center. “We provide an impressive array of high-quality classes and services that are tailored to help clients meet their health and wellness goals.”

Providence wellness centers provide access to a variety of health and wellness options that meet the varying needs of community members. That means each patient can find offerings that work for their needs, from help developing healthy habits to ways to implement self-care to support finding healthy food options. One service provided by Providence is Basecamp, which offers free wellness and prevention classes in areas related to fitness, meditation and even cooking. Many of the classes are offered virtually, so patients can join from anywhere, anytime.

Because Providence offers hospital-based wellness centers, patients benefit from having the entire continuum of care within one system, including fitness, nutrition, mind-body experts, clinical therapists and physicians. In fact, staff at Providence wellness centers can communicate with providers via Epic, which makes care more convenient for providers and beneficial for patients.

“Providence works in partnership with physicians and other providers to help patients implement and maintain recommendations to improve their health and quality of life,” says Wroe. “Instead of recommending a patient join a gym and having no visibility on if they actually go, physicians who refer patients to our wellness center can ensure there is an action plan and seamless transition to qualified professionals that they can trust.”

Opening applications for geotargeting

The Providence app leverages geolocation and automated information processing to deliver relevant resources, programs and services to patients. For example, patients already can see information like urgent care locations and wait times based on their current location — they don’t need to manage their location or request a specific location.

As DIG continues to develop new features for the app, these capabilities will increase in ways that support patients. For example, patients eventually may be able to find new services close to them through geotargeting features, such as:

Chronic care management programs.
Information about the hospital they’re visiting (e.g., maps, parking).
Maternity courses.
Offerings based on social determinants of health.
Physical and occupational therapy.

“Every patient can focus on wellness, but finding the activities and resources that are right for each patient is an important step,” says Chu. “Through our app, we are physically meeting where they are, as well as more figuratively meeting patients in their health journey.”

To see these new digital capabilities in action, download the Providence app and sign in using your Providence or MyChart credentials. You can create a Providence account if you don’t have one, which will give you access to both the Providence app and MyChart. Inside the app, you’ll find a robust digital experience personalized to you — including all of your care options in one place, personalized programs, service and resource recommendations, self-service support, and navigation capabilities.

Contributing caregivers

Megan Wroe is the wellness manager and registered dietitian, Wellness Center, Providence St. Jude Medical Center.

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