• Jessica Wild, Alexander Kaizer, Emileigh Willems, Erik Seth Kramer, and Leigh Perreault.
• Department of Biostatistics and Informatics, Center for Innovative Design and Analysis, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, CO, United States.
• Fam Pract. 2023 Mar 28; 40 (2): 322329322-329.

ObjectiveTreatment of obesity-related diseases, rather than obesity itself, remains the mainstay of medical care. The current study examined a novel approach that prioritizes weight management in primary care to shift this paradigm.MethodsPATHWEIGH is a weight management approach consisting of staff team training, workflow system management, and data capture from tools built into the electronic medical record (EPIC). PATHWEIGH was compared to standard of care (SOC) using two family medicine clinics in the same US healthcare system. Descriptive statistics compared patient-, provider-, and clinic-level factors between the groups among those with at least one weight-prioritized visit (WPV) and one follow-up weight over 14 months.ResultsGroups were similar in terms of total patient visits (7,353 vs. 7,984) and patients eligible for a WPV (i.e. >18 years + body mass index >25 kg/m2; 3,746 vs. 3,008, PATHWEIGH vs. SOC, respectively). However, more PATHWEIGH clinic patients (15.9% vs. 8.4%; P < 0.001) received at least one WPV. Although no difference was observed for average patient weight loss over 14 months (P = 0.991), the number of WPVs per patient was higher in PATHWEIGH (P < 0.001) and significantly associated with weight loss (P = 0.001), with an average decrease in weight of 0.55 kg per additional visit.ConclusionsResults from the current study demonstrate early success in changing the paradigm from treating weight-related comorbidities to treating weight in primary care.© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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