A quick Google search of “the most common New Year’s Resolutions” yields very familiar themes: Most of us hope to lose weight and live healthier lives. Fortunately, with 2023 now officially underway, southern Utah residents have an outstanding resource—or full complement of resources—that can make that resolution a reality.
Tucked away on the lower level of the St. George Regional Hospital Health & Performance Center, the Intermountain Healthcare LiVe Well Center offers patients and those seeking a healthier lifestyle a robust array of services supporting body, mind and soul.
Lifestyle, in fact, is what it’s all about at LiVe Well. Just ask Nicole A. Fellows, PA-C, MS, who’s been on staff at the center for the past year. Nicole, who was recruited from the esteemed Mayo Clinic, holds a Master of Physician Assistant Studies from Des Moines University, and has been in practice for more than seven years. She believes the center can play a significant role in shifting healthcare from a reactive to a proactive model.
“I provide lifestyle-focused primary care and lifestyle medicine consult services,” Nicole explains. “The LiVe Well Center offers truly traditional, evidence-based medicine. But we focus our emphasis and resources on the things we know are the first measures for taking care of patients’ health and wellbeing, such as exercise, nutrition and counseling.”
With that goal in mind, Nicole and her team deliver everything from fitness and yoga classes to consultations with exercise physiologists, registered dieticians and a licensed social worker, strength conditioning and personal training classes, and more. For those whose travel schedules or ongoing safety concerns preclude in-person meetings and classes, streaming and virtual options are available as well.
Nicole notes that each patient’s program, which begins with a functional fitness assessment, is expressly tailor-made. “We review their labs, we find out about any existing ailments, we check the patient’s strength and balance, and so forth, so we can make sure we’re never recommending a program that might injure them. And then we develop a program that will help each person meet their unique goals.”
Many, but not all, of the services offered by LiVe Well are covered by insurance. Nicole hopes that taking a proactive approach to healthcare—encouraging patients to adopt a lifestyle that will stave off chronic illness, falls, weight issues, depression and other disorders—will eventually create a new standard of care.
“My ultimate hope is that we can prove value in this, and to expand coverage so these services can be more widely accessible. We want to transform the way we provide care.”
Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine services are billed to insurance; other services are fee-based. For more information or to schedule a functional fitness assessment, call 435.251.3793 or visit livewellcenter.org/stgeorge.
LIVE WELL CENTER’S OVERALL SERVICES INCLUDE:
- Lifestyle Medicine
- Nutrition Counseling
- Live Well Assessments
- Fitness Assessments
- Body Composition
- Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)
- VO2 Max Testing
FITNESS CLASSES INCLUDE:
- Live Fit Classes
- Personal & Small Group Training
- Flex, Mindful Living, Yoga
- Arthrofit, Balance & Mobility, Strength & Conditioning
- Virtual Classes
Nicole A. Fellows, PA-C, exhibits a professional interest in teaching/precepting and providing high quality care and positive patient experience through an individualized approach to medicine. In her practice, Nicole specializes in lifestyle medicine, internal medicine and chronic disease management and prevention. Conditions treated include hypertension, diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidemia, thyroid abnormalities, depression, anxiety, mood disorders, arthritis and fatigue.