/EINPresswire.com/ -- NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Mar 13, 2017) - Off The Scale® (OTS) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) have just announced a significant strategic partnership, with ACSM and its Exercise is Medicine^® (EIM) Global Center teaming up with OTS to combat the progression of chronic diseases. This partnership supports continued efforts to develop and implement lifestyle change programs aimed at combating sedentary lifestyle, obesity and those chronic diseases that can be significantly treated or managed by physical activity and other lifestyle interventions.

Off The Scale has developed an innovative chronic disease intervention program with a turnkey, hybrid delivery approach. This approach combines all the benefits of immersive, digital technology (app, wearable and community) integrated with regular in-person group sessions facilitated by EIM Credentialed professionals.

EIM and OTS will be working together to use ACSM's national footprint to provide healthcare leadership with an integrated solution that combines awareness of the issues relating to lifestyle-driven chronic disease prevention and management with referral to community care programs. The EIM Global Research and Collaboration Center (GRCC) has been established jointly by ACSM and Emory's School of Public Health to create standards for the measurement of pioneering health interventions like OTS. It is housed within the Global Diabetes Research Center at Emory's Hubert Department of Global Health and the Rollins School of Public Health. The GRCC leverages the expertise of leading researchers at Emory University and the global network of ACSM/EIM members to achieve its overall goal of evaluating the real-life effectiveness of chronic disease program implementation via standardized clinical care and community care linkages to prevent, manage or even reverse the progression of chronic diseases.

"As the healthcare industry continues to evolve, it is clear that lifestyle-based chronic disease is the largest challenge to health systems. The community care space occupied by OTS is going to be a critical point of care delivery, especially for those systems with a population health focus," says Jim Whitehead, CEO of ACSM. "ACSM continues to extend its partnership with professional medical, allied health and fitness organizations to offer a solution that can help to improve patient outcomes and lower costs and this partnership with OTS is an illustration of our commitment to fighting chronic disease," continues Mr. Whitehead.

"As we roll out the OTS Intervention on a national basis, it is critical for OTS to build an effective onramp for high quality, credentialed health professionals," says Ashley John Heather, President & co-Founder of OTS. "We have enjoyed being pioneers alongside ACSM in the delivery of community care, and we look forward to a successful partnership to reverse our nation's chronic disease epidemic together."

About Off The Scale

Off The Scale provides a turnkey outsourced intervention program that disrupts the behavior and lifestyle choices that cause and sustain chronic disease. The program is a hybrid of digital, group and in-person methodologies that creates long-term sustained behavior change. OTS treats patients with one or more existing chronic conditions, as this population is driving the majority of healthcare costs. The solution has been proven to reverse the progression of chronic disease patients, resulting in reduced spending on inpatient care, medicine, emergency room visits and a host of other associated expenses.

About EIM and ACSM

Exercise is Medicine® (EIM) is taking the lead in linking healthcare systems and providers to health and fitness programs and professionals, and brings to the partnership with OTS a network of credentialed health and fitness professionals. EIM is managed by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the largest sports medicine and exercise science organization in the world. More than 50,000 international, national and regional members and certified professionals are dedicated to advancing and integrating scientific research to provide educational and practical applications of exercise science and sports medicine.