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| Promoting Rational, Appropriate, Cost-Effective Health Care | |||||||
| ABOUT US | SERVICES | MEDICAL FORUM | DEMOS | LOGIN | |||
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| Promoting Rational, Appropriate, Cost-Effective Health Care | |||||||
| ABOUT US | SERVICES | MEDICAL FORUM | DEMOS | LOGIN | |||
         
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CIMAS |
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| CIMAS VISION | |
| CIMAS will become a leading professionally managed healthcare scheme with high integrity, offering superior quality of life to responsible members who accept and value the principles of appropriate healthcare through lifestyle management. | |
| CIMAS MISSION | |
| To offer a sustainable, innovative and comprehensive healthcare solution with the emphasis on preventative healthcare through lifestyle management and education. | |
| GUIDING STRATEGY - PHILOSOPHY | |
| CIMAS’s guiding strategy is to grow membership by focusing on preventative, rather than curative healthcare, and beneficiary responsibility for wellness. | |
| WHAT IS TOTAL WELL-BEING? | |
| .One
of the great principles of the universe is the principle of
balance. If the earth were a few miles closer to the sun, it
would be an inferno. If it were a few miles farther away, it
would be a desolate, frigid desert. But in its present location,
balanced at an ideal distance from the sun, our planet is in a
perfect position to sustain an exciting proliferation of life
forms.
The human body is just another part of the universe that is meant to be in perfect balance. We have been constructed in such a way that if a person gets too little or too much exercise, food or rest, then his or her entire physical and psychological system gets out of kilter. And where there is a lack of balance, there is also a lack of well-being. On the positive side, where there is balance there is a sense of well-being. And where there is perfect balance, there is total well-being. If you embark on a personal quest to achieve total well-being you’ll enjoy an exciting array of personal benefits that you may have assumed could never possibly be yours. Here are some of the benefits of total well-being: |
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| HEALTH PROMOTION - DEFINITIONS | |
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"Health
promotion is the science and art of helping people change their
lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health. Optimal
health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social,
spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle change can
be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance
awareness, change behaviour and create environments that support
good health practices. Of the three, supportive
environments will probably have the greatest impact in producing
lasting change". Health promotion - "the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to increase their health" Health WHO - "a resource for everyday life ... a positive concept emphasising social and personal resources as well as physical capabilities." Health Promotion Process: |
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| The
healthcare industry seems dizzy from the pace of change. Managed
care plans, healthcare reformers, businesses concerned about
cost containment, and families wanting healthcare freedom of
choice-all making conflicting demands of providers, of
hospitals, of health plans and of anyone else involved in
healthcare. Health assessment instruments provide a crucial
ability to the healthcare professional working in this
environment. They allow the measurement of health risks, health
status, and other variables related to health. They also provide
baselines against which to measure change or enhance the ability
to predict future disease.
"If you want to manage it, measure it." Health assessment is the starting point for any reasoned investigation of the links between health and workplace performance. Poor lifestyle habits can seriously compromise one’s quality of life. They also contribute to skyrocketing health care costs, with the costliest behaviours including alcohol abuse, smoking and hypertension, over-nutrition/over-weight, elevated cholesterol, lack of fitness, and accidents. Not only are direct health care costs affected, but absenteeism, productivity, and other factors are influenced as well. CIMAS supports the assertion that health promotion and disease prevention can save money for companies and other organisations, while simultaneously improving the quality of individual lives. The World Health Organisation defines health as: "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." |
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LIFESTYLE MANAGEMENT / WELLNESS |
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| Wellness
is a combination of physical, mental and spiritual well-being
that comes from taking responsibility for one’s health and
making positive lifestyle choices. Wellness is not merely the
absence of disease of a notifiable disease, it is decision to
adopt a healthy lifestyle and eliminate health risks.
Great benefits can be derived from making small, but sustainable changes. The following diagram illustrates the difference between treating the symptoms of illness to try to restore health, compared to adopting a healthy lifestyle to promote optimal health Wellness is a range of lifestyle choices and actions that govern how you eat, exercise, manage stress, interact with the medical system, treat your body and perceive and respond to the world around you. The process of adapting patterns of behaviour that lead to improved health and heightened life satisfaction" (Dunn). Califano suggests the profile of the "holistic" healthcare consumer: "You the individual, can do more for your health and well-being than any doctor, any hospital, any drug, and any exotic medical device." Dr Kenneth Cooper, who says his life purpose is to be a preventative medical specialist, has researched the connection between physical fitness and health. His book strives to achieve exercise, diet and emotional balance in the individual. He says that the burden to business and consumers alike, of the astronomical costs of employee health care, is illustrated by General Motors where the highest single component of the cost of a new automobile is the health insurance premium. Generally speaking, an American wellness program is designed both to perk up employees during work hours and also to increase their overall health so that company health costs and absenteeism go down. More specifically, wellness programs have been shown to improve employee attitudes and morale at work, reduce turnover, and decrease sick pay and the cost of company health insurance premiums. The more sophisticated of these programs screen employees for total risk of diseases; they provide a thorough physical examination, and they make recommendations for improving a person’s coronary risk profile, with diet and exercise suggestions. But even though the business community is coming around to the idea that a physically fit body reaps many corporate rewards, the biggest changes yet to be made will focus on the life and health insurers. An old Chinese custom was for the people to pay their physician only when they were well. If they got sick, the doctor had to care for the patient without any pay. Cooper ascertains that establishing a personal balance that will lead to total well-being on the job is not limited to one individual’s commitment to fitness. To create an environment where good health and productivity become the order of the day, everyone must work together - to achieve a community equilibrium, based on good nutrition and aerobic conditioning, that will accrue to the benefit of all. Cooper writes that people instinctively feel they have some divine protection and that they can continue to ignore the laws of well-being and not reap the consequences. What is important is the quality of your life - a life that is happy, healthy, and productive. The arguments in favour of wellness are well summarised by Kizer, the Chief Executive Officer of the Central States Health and Life Company of Omaha: |
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"Wellness is one cause where all parties - employees, employers, insurers and health care providers - have a vested interest and where everyone can come together to provide the environment and the support people need to make life-changing decisions. Health care costs are not created by hospitals and physicians. The reason health care costs have risen as much as they have has a great deal to do with each of us as individuals. We don’t live right. We create our own problems as individuals and we can solve them as individuals. The fact that people are taking better care of themselves will contribute a great deal more in the long run than any cost containment program. The potential is there. It’s been estimated that more than 50 percent of the disease and illness we suffer in America before the age of 65 is caused by lifestyle, so we have an enormous opportunity to reduce the need for medical care by changing people’s lifestyles." |
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PREVENTION |
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One’s health and well-being lies primarily in one’s own hands. If one is resolved to take a positive attitude towards one’s health, and to prevent problems, rather that treating them as and when they occur, physical fitness must play an essential part of your life. Lack of activity is a contributing factor in many of the western diseases of middle and old age, including coronary heart disease, diabetes, depression, obesity and osteoporosis. There are three important points one should consider if you want to live better and healthier: |
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THE CHRONIC DISEASES OF LIFESTYLE |
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Heart
disease Obesity Diabetes Cancer Osteoporosis Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
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BEHAVIOURS THAT AFFECT HEALTH |
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