Doc’s prescription: Go take a hike

An e-prescribing public health initiative called Park Prescription (Park Rx) is promoting the belief that the path to better health can be found in the park system.

Under the National Park Service’s “Health Parks Health People US” initiative, Park Rx fosters patient-provider relationship in which providers talk with patients about how to get on an exercise routine by effectively using their neighborhood parks to engage in physical activities.

“[T]hrough programs like Park Rx, we can see how health IT is being used to combat epidemics of chronic disease,” wrote Simone Myrie, public health analyst at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and James Daniel, public health coordinator at ONC, in a blog post.  

The ONC public health officials cited the experience of Robert Zarr, MS, a primary care pediatrician at Unity Health Care’s Upper Cardozo Community Health Center in Washington, D.C. Zarr has fully integrated Park Rx into Unity’s EHR system.

Embedded in Zarr’s EHR system is a searchable park database of about 350 parks summaries. All parks are located within the city, and are rated on certain criteria, including level of activity, accessibility, cleanliness and safety, among others. Providers ask their patients what activities might be of interest to them and then search the database to find the right parks closest to their homes, according to the blog post.

Since going live in July 2013, 27 healthcare providers have adopted Park Rx, and more than 500 park prescriptions have been made, reported the ONC officials.

“Even though many of our patients have accessible parks and some were already going, they didn’t think of going to the park as a way to improve their health. The kids get really excited when they see all the cool things some of their neighborhood parks offer that they hadn’t realized before,” Zarr said, according to the blog post.

Read the ONC blog post here.