The team is at the heart of a new approach to health care, which is being assessed in a pilot study called "Using A Clinically Driven Community Health Assessment Team (C.H.A.T.) to Reduce Health-Care Costs in Greene County.

Funded by Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, the study aims to see whether a team approach can reduce health-care costs and boost patient satisfaction. The team will focus on the problems of the people who use health care the most in Greene County.

"About ten percent of the people you care for use about 70 percent of your health-care dollars," said William Tindall, Ph.D., director of the Alliance for Research in Community Health at Wright State University School of Medicine. Tindall helped assemble the health-care team and is in charge of evaluating its effectiveness.

"We're going to ask the employer groups to give us a list of who their top [health-care] users are and work our way down," said Tindall. "A lot of these people are getting interventions and not preventions."

Instead of treating a top health-care user simply for the problem they present with at the time, the Community Health Assessment Team will take a look at that person's health from a variety of angles, to determine, and hopefully ease, their need for frequent health-care.

"It's not just about saving money but also about improving people's health, " said Mark McDonnell, health commissioner for Greene County and a supervisor of the Community Health Assessment Team. "Instead of having health care dictated to a patient, you specifically tailor health care to the person involved. You look at their medical situation, their family situated, where they are in community."

For example, a family physician may see a patient with arthritis and prescribe pain pills to solve the problem. If the Community Health Assessment Team were involved, the massage therapist might suggest weekly massage to alleviate the symptoms without costly pills, or potential side effects. The team's psychologist might evaluate the effect arthritis has had on that person's quality of life and suggest some remedies as well, including tips from the aromatherapist.

"It is important to our team to include integrated medicine because so much of a person's journey to find good health is a function of wanting to be in control of their health, and to do this using their own health-belief system," said Tindall. "People's personal health beliefs are not well understood, nor are they explored in the brief encounters that are the hallmark of a trip to a traditional clinician."

If the results of the pilot study, which is expected to last six months, show that health-care costs are reduced and patient health is increased, Tindall said the Community Health Assessment Team would attempt to sell itself as a permanent facet of Greene County's health system.

"This would help lower the cost of health care for everyone in the county," said McDonnell.