Fitness Centers are a new frontier for North Jersey hospitals

Kitty Grunert isn’t who you would picture when you hear the term gym rat.

But the 71-year-old Mahwah woman goes to Valley Health Lifestyles several times a week to swim and walk around the indoor track.

Before joining the new fitness center that opened this month in Mahwah, she suffered from myriad spinal and hip ailments. Now, she says, her back feels better than it has in years.

“I’ve got everything: a herniated disk, a bulging disk, osteoarthritis,” Grunert said. “I have no pain anymore. When I tell my doctor, he’s amazed.”

The fitness center is part of Valley Health System, which manages the Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, and is the latest gym affiliated with a local hospital system to open in northern New Jersey.

Hackensack University Medical Center opened a fitness center in Maywood in 2012 and Holy Name Medical Center has run a gym in Oradell since 2007. And Englewood Hospital and Medical Center recently launched a partnership with Kaplen JCC on the Palisades that aims to improve patients’ health before and after treatment through a fitness program at the center.

Beyond fitness

These centers aim to be more than just places to work out. Nutritionists are on staff to help clients design diets to complement their exercise program. In addition, patrons undergo a mammography, receive physical therapy or visit specialty programs such as the diabetes center or behavioral health services at HackensackUMC Fitness & Wellness. Valley’s center will offer a pharmacy, urgent care center, diagnostic screening, physical therapy and cardiac rehabilitation on-site.

Hospital officials say the centers are a way to improve people’s health outside the doctor’s office and expand their outreach into the communities they serve.

“We want to not just treat people who are sick, but live up to our mission of providing health to the community,” said Mark Sparta, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Hackensack University Medical Center. “There’s a difference between what we offer and what a typical commercial gym offers. It’s medically-based wellness.”

When a member joins one of these hospital-affiliated gyms, they are typically given a fitness assessment to examine their cardiovascular ability, flexibility, blood pressure, and medical records to design an individualized fitness program.

“They know what problems you have and how to handle them,” Grunert said after swimming laps last week in Valley’s pool.

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A device introduced last month at Holy Name’s fitness center HNH Fitness goes a step further to produce a full body scan that measures a person’s body shape and composition and indicates their risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and other health issues, based on the person's waist circumference and other data and population information.

An initial fitness assessment is particularly important given the demographics of the clients the center serves, said Robert Angner, the executive director of Valley Health Lifestyles.

About half of the club’s 2,000 members have some sort of chronic disease, such as heart disease or diabetes. In a commercial gym, the average age of the clientele is about 30, and is mostly men. At Valley, most of the clients are over 50 and are women, Angner said.

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“Some people here were referred by their doctors and others have come on their own, but many have never set foot in a gym before,” Angner said. “We have exercise specialists walking the floor, talking with people, helping them, with the understanding that if you’ve got chronic diseases, there are certain things you shouldn’t be doing and certain things you should be doing.”

The exercise specialists all hold bachelor's or master's degrees in exercise physiology and a medical director oversees the gym, giving input on everything from what fitness classes are offered to the lay out of the machines on the floor, Angner said.

Membership costs for these fitness centers range from $50 to $79 a month. The monthly price for a membership is $35 at New York Sports Clubs, $30 at Gold's Gym and $25 at L.A. Fitness.

More proactive approach

Steven Davis, head of marketing for Town Sports, which owns New York Sports Clubs, said he believes hospitals are opening these centers to take a more proactive approach to people's health.

"They're looking at it as preventative medicine. If you work out and eat right, chances are you'll have better health down the road, and we've known for a long time," Davis said. "Obviously any gym that opens up is competition. We've been in the gym business for 40 years, so I think we're better equipped in terms of fitness goals, but at the end of the day we're all in this business for the same reason — to get people healthy."

Despite the medical connection, insurance companies have so far treated these facilities like any other gym. Some plans offer partial reimbursements for members as an incentive to keep physically active, but many do not.

UnitedHealthcare offers up to $400 a year for members who log 50 hours in six months at a gym or doing yoga, kickboxing or other activities. The company also allows members to earn more than $1,000 a year if they meet fitness goals tracked by an activity tracker or smart watch.

But the program does not direct members specifically to gyms associated with hospitals, said Jennifer Statham, a spokeswoman for the company.

"We want members to get healthy doing activities and at facilities that are broadly attractive to our members and meet the criteria of the program," she said. "So we don’t have specific incentives for specific centers."

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey gives a $20 reward for every month a member makes at least 12 visits to one of 4,000 participating fitness centers across the country.

The company also offers a gym discount program but does not specifically provide incentives to join hospital affiliated centers.

“To me, it makes a lot of sense for insurance companies to encourage their members to participate in an exercise program,” said Dr. J. Christopher Mendler, the medical director at HNH Fitness. “If we can get people to be more physically active, we can save healthcare dollars later. Hopefully they’ll have fewer strokes, less heart disease and less diabetes down the line.”

Many members are former patients who opt to continue with a fitness program at an affiliated gym after their prescribed rehabilitation program is completed.

John Driscoll, an 81-year-old retired pediatrician, goes to HNH Fitness three times a week to work with a personal trainer, for about $40 per session on top of the membership cost.

The Oradell resident underwent surgery several years ago to replace an aortic valve in his heart and was referred to Holy Name's cardiac rehab program after the surgery.

When Driscoll finished the program, he began working with the personal trainer at HNH Fitness to continue a similar recovery program at the fitness center that happened to be located in his hometown.

"When I finished my rehab program I went to the gym to maintain my fitness," Driscoll said. "I realized that the program I was getting at the gym was very similar to the program I had been getting at the cardiac rehab center, but much closer to home."

Email: burrow@northjersey.com