The Hancock Wellness Center is owned and operated by Hancock Health, a not-for-profit hospital in Greenfield, IN. Hancock Health’s mission statement is “to be a caring community partner by healing, improving health and wellness, alleviating suffering and delivering acts of kindness one person at a time.” We try to embody this mission statement in every program that we offer at Hancock Wellness.
Hancock Wellness has three certified medical fitness facilities located throughout Hancock County. Our 
Greenfield location is now an Exercise is Medicine® Community Fitness Partner through ACSM. We have been living this model for many years now as our clinical programs serve as an essential part of who we are. However, our Referral for Exercise program has been our most successful and defining program.
Our Referral for Exercise program affords health care providers the ability to refer their patients to our fitness facilities. For just $60, their patients receive 60 days of supervised exercise programming to help manage and improve their health and fitness. Each enrollee receives a comprehensive health and fitness assessment, which serves as the base for their personalized exercise program and includes special considerations for their health needs and/or chronic conditions. Hancock Wellness Center adheres to the Medical Fitness Association’s standards for fitness staff credentials and education. All exercise specialists hold at least a bachelors in kinesiology or related degree, at least one accredited fitness certification, another specialty certification and the EIM Credential. We work with a variety of referrals, but we primarily see patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiac rehab phase 3, hypertension, cancer, obesity and/or those who are deconditioned. Hancock Wellness is integrated within the hospital’s electronic medical record (EMR) system which allows us to provide regular updates and progress status to the patient’s referring provider. We utilize Technogym’s software and technology through their MyWellness platform to track biometric data such as body fat percentage, blood pressure, glucose, pounds of muscle mass, fluid balance, visceral fat, and much more. Furthermore, we utilize this system to design, track, and monitor the participants’ workouts, to not only keep each session consistent, but to instill independence and confidence, so that they can continue these programs on their own after they complete the program.
This program has seen several successes over the years. For example, in 2019, our diabetes referral enrollees improved the duration of their cardiovascular test by 3 minutes, and we had 146 enrollees complete the program! This year we had 66 referrals in our program up until the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced us to close our facilities from March 2020 until May 2020. Once we safely reopened, we began reaching out to these 66 to offer them the option to come back and start the program from the beginning, at no additional cost. Since then, we have seen 23 of those patients return and have received 16 new referrals.
Another success of this program has been our conversion rate from this 60-day program to our standard membership. From 2013 to 2018, 58% of our referrals, who completed the program, joined our wellness center as a member. If we look at total participants, including those who did not complete the 60-day program, our conversion rate falls to 40%. We take this data as proof that those who see the program to completion have more significant results, see the value in our facility and are encouraged to continue making exercise a lifelong priority.
