"Fundamentally Different"

By 2015 we knew we were onto something solid . We had already tried something, proved it could work, had our legs cut out from under us, crawled back to the starting line and were beginning to reimagine the path ahead of us. It would be plenty treacherous, but there was a new energy, and we knew that in one way or another it was time to go forward again.One of the hardest lessons learned during those years was the problem we were out to solve. Preventable as it might be, it was simply not something we could handle alone.

While our model was admired and even formally recognized as an innovation worth watching in professional circles, we were but one small light in the vastness of opportunity-everywhere. If we were going to help the world change, we were going to have to make it easier for those thoughtful committed citizens to get together.It started, as these things tend to, with a special energetic few who believed unshakably that it was possible. Those conversations grew into a meeting of the minds held at BaseCamp31 which carried on late into the evening around the fire pit. What started as “imagine if” statements of what might be possible grew into a vision of a creative space for those who were willing to take the fundamentally different path required to prevent disease and promote health. It would be staffed by committed professionals who could help ideas incubate and welcome the failures that lead to iterative success. We would call it The Academy of Prevention and Health Promotion Therapies (The APHPT) and over the next years it would galvanize hundreds of healthcare professionals from around the country to both think and do differently. 

Whether it was celebrating the “crazy idea” of prevention with a parade through the streets in New Orleans, showcasing the power of physical activity with an Everest-equivalent climb on the stairs of the Capitol, inspiring hundreds of colleagues to play a role in a summer health challenge with friends, or leaning into lockdown life in order to prove how powerful health data can be when set in front of the right eyes, the “small group” with humble beginnings has had a bigger impact than most anticipated it would. It takes guts to be different, it takes grit to stick with it long enough to make it count.

-Mike E.