With the growing epidemic of obesity in the U.S. and the emergence of new weight management therapies, it is more important than ever for primary care physicians to incorporate weight care processes into their practices. At this year’s 85^th Scientific Sessions, a team of investigators will share their findings from PATHWEIGH, an ongoing study exploring a clinical strategy for weight management intended to help primary care practice teams provide the latest evidence-based help to their patients.

The symposium, PATHWEIGH Trial—Building the Highway for Weight Management in Primary Care, will be held on Friday, June 20, from 3:45–5:15 p.m., in Room W375 A of the McCormick Place Convention Center. On-demand access to recorded presentations will be available to registered participants following the conclusion of the 85^th Scientific Sessions, from June 25–August 25.

“It is important to understand that PATHWEIGH is not a weight loss program, but rather a road or pathway for a complete process of care to facilitate and prioritize weight management in the primary care setting,” said PATHWEIGH Co-principal Investigator Leigh Perreault, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who will discuss the effectiveness of the intervention on patient weight. “We’ve never really had a process of care within primary care medicine to facilitate and prioritize weight management so that we can provide people living with obesity the care that they need, and deserve, and want. That’s the goal of PATHWEIGH.”

PATHWEIGH focuses on reducing excess body weight and weight-related medical complications by providing patients with highly individualized, flexible, and evolving care based on their needs, access, and preferences. In order to test the effectiveness of PATHWEIGH versus standard of care, the process was implemented in 56 primary care clinics across the University of Colorado (UC) Health System.

“The implementation strategies are designed to support the intervention, which is PATHWEIGH, but they also have independent effects, including their ability to encourage important practice changes to support weight loss and weight maintenance processes,” said PATHWEIGH Co-principal Investigator Jodi Summers Holtrop, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family Medicine and Co-Director of the Dissemination and Implementation Science Program at ACCORDS in the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “People often think research is just about creating new treatment approaches, but research is also about creating the roads for new approaches to run on, because if you don’t have roads, the effective treatments never get to anybody, and they never help anybody.”

Dr. Holtrop will describe the PATHWEIGH implementation process and how it impacts the entire primary care team.

“The difference between the PATHWEIGH trial and other studies is that it is a highly pragmatic trial, designed to provide real-world evidence for real-world impact,” said Mark Gritz, PhD, Associate Professor and Head of the Division of Health Care Policy and Research, and Director of Operations at the Farley Health Policy Center at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “PATHWEIGH is an electronic health record-based study and creates some exciting and interesting analytical approaches to get the best evidence we can from a pragmatic trial that has that external validity.”

Dr. Gritz will describe the study methods.

The investigators believe their findings demonstrate PATHWEIGH’s potential to be a scalable, low-cost, pragmatic approach to obesity that could transform weight management. The key to the program’s success is that patient care is provided in the comfort and familiarity of primary care, where a long-term relationship is possible, according to Peter C. Smith, MD, Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Medical Director of Primary Care and Adult Hospital-Based Practice at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who will discuss the potential of PATHWEIGH from the primary care provider perspective.

“PATHWEIGH is essentially a primary care redesign project to help create room in already overwhelmed practices for obesity management. In PATHWEIGH, I think we’ve shown that people who engage with this care succeed, and their patients benefit,” Dr. Smith said. “As a clinician, I have been through the process and my confidence in my ability to manage obesity has skyrocketed. I see our next step as iterating on the tools that we’ve shown can work, improving efficiency, and developing some new approaches to meet additional needs identified in our qualitative results.”

To conclude the session, obesity care expert Robert Kushner, MD, MS, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, will provide an independent commentary on the PATHWEIGH findings and the potential for incorporating obesity management into the mainstream of primary care.