Fighting against crime, traffic congestion, blight, and economic woes means our Superheroes have to stay in top shape. That means Potato chips are out, kale chips are in.
Heroes are sleeping with devices that measure their REM, loading up on low-glycemic food and working at treadmill desks. When they brainstorm new features, they go for a walk rather than piling into a conference room. They’re responding to mounting evidence that links diet, exercise and sleep to Superhero abilities. Their homebases are offering free gym memberships and on-site gyms, unlimited sick days, nap pods and hammocks and top chefs to whip up meals with fewer than 600 calories.
But when our heroes do need a doctor, they have a sometimes bewildering array of doctors to choose from. But our heroes at Castlight Health are changing that. Castlight, in the simplest terms, wants to bring comparison shopping to health care. They will give our heroes, and those in every community nationwide, the ability to make informed decisions by comparing doctor fees and other patients’ quality rankings of doctors. With a growing list of national employer customers, health plan partners, and the backing of top-tier investors, Castlight is rapidly becoming a major force of change in American health care.
And yet, there is another strategy to recognizing those with the powers to heal, cut through administrative paperwork, and reach out to the community. Give them awards.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal honors top doctors, nurses, researchers and other health practitioners in the Silicon Valley health scene at the annual Health Care Heroes awards breakfast.
Recently, 215 people attended the event at the Computer History Museum to cheer their colleagues at Valley hospitals and health clinics including Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Palo Alto Medical Center, Hospice of the Valley and Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. The event honors those who epitomize the word “hero” in the delivery of health care to the community. The awards seek to salute excellence, encourage innovation, offer examples of best practices for others to emulate, raise awareness in the community, enhance the quality of health care and, of course, recognize deserving individuals and organizations within the industry. It is events like this that communities nationwide can emulate, bringing notetriety to their own local healthcare heroes.
HEALTHCARE EMPOWERMENT
How to Complete Your Mission:
- LEARN – Educate yourself about how to live a healthier lifestyle. Expand your vision, and learn about how you can make Modesto into a healthy active community, perhaps through something as simple as walking.
- ACT – What can you do about it? What one change can you make to help improve the healthy options available to your community? Using any one of your own self-described super powers, find another Super Hero and create a Healthy Alliance, and make that one healthy change TOGETHER! You can create your alliance with any currently active Super Hero, or you can invite someone to join the //Building Imagination Hero Alliance. Show us how you made a healthier choice with a photo and a recounting of your heroic deed.
- IMAGINE – Click here to unleash your creativity and see how well you can overpower fast food!
- Ask A Mentor for Help
- See how our Round 1 Superheroes fought for healthcare empowerment!
The community could be healthier because they do not know about their options and they assume taking care of their bodies is time-consuming and hard. There should be a newsletter that offers tips and more information to everyone regarding how to make better food choices and exercise options that are easy to accomplish.
My action image is an example of such a newsletter.
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LEARN - So yesterday while eating out at the cafe inside the Mary Stuart Rodgers building that there was no calorie count on any of the beverages or drinks (outside of the commercial plastic bottle drinks and a few others). I’m not so sure why there isn’t a display for how much calories are in every meal, as it usually helps me choose the better choice for myself when eating lunch or breakfast.ACT - [1] [2]This morning I myself made a healthy choice by having just two thin, plain bagels with a little bit of Philadelphia cream cheese spread and counting the calories of each item, as well as a cup of green organic tea. It totaled around 320 calories, which is a great size for a quick breakfast, in my opinion. I think that CSU Stanislaus could benefit from some sort of nutritional facts displayed on the school menus while waiting in line, not necessarily similar to this, but just a general summary.IMAGINE – I made it to level 20 with 196 points on the Overpower Fast Food game.