Active Prescription Thunderhead's Active Prescription program, which will become one of our replicable models, builds on a highly successful Australian model that paired doctors with a bicycle advocacy organization.  With Thunderhead's Active Prescription program, when a participating doctor prescribes activity to a patient at risk from obesity and/or diabetes, that patient will get their prescription filled at their local Thunderhead organization. Each patient's vO2max rating (the maximum amount of oxygen in milliliters one can use in one minute per kilogram of body weight) is measured by the participating doctor at the start of the program.  Bike or walk buddies at the local Thunderhead organization are matched with each patient for a full year of activity tailored to each patient's preferences such as riding or walking for recreation vs. transportation.  Monthly reports from the patient to the Thunderhead organization keep track, but the end of the year vO2max measurement is the true measure of success. The two successful Australian pilots, with 40 patients each, found that after just the first few months of the program the patients were exceeding their scheduled bicycling time.  Most of them were so thrilled by the discovery of bicycling that, on their own initiative, they formed neighborhood and school groups to join them on their rides. The Australian insurance companies have estimated that the year-long program will save them from $1,000 to $3,000 per patient per year on-going because of the new commitment of the patients to not only continue riding, but become ambassadors of bicycling themselves.  This figure does not take into account the savings from the other potential patients these patients brought to bicycling as well as their employer's savings due to increased productivity and decreased absenteeism so common for overweight employees. Thunderhead's Active Prescription program will expand these cost savings to include patients who choose walking as well as comprehensive employer programs tailored to meet the needs of each participating company and their employees.  Thunderhead's Benchmarking Project includes data sets for obesity and diabetes and compares this data with bicycling and walking data to showcase the need for Thunderhead's Active Prescription program. If you would like to support or assist with one of these early pilots that will develop into Thunderhead's Active Prescription program, please contact: Dominic Liberatore, Interim Executive Director Dominic "at" ThunderheadAlliance.org (614) 204-4628 Please also see our supporter and sponsorship opportunities at: Supporters Sponsors