Loma Linda University Health and Nudj Health Launch Integrated Whole-Person Primary Care Model Designed to Advance the Future of Healthcare Delivery

Academic Medical Center Integrates Lifestyle Medicine, Behavioral Health, and Longitudinal Care Tech-Enabled Services into Primary Care Workflows with Research Initiative Focused on Medicare Sustainability and Chronic Disease Outcomes

Key Highlights

• Loma Linda University Health and Nudj Health launch an integrated whole-person primary care model designed to address the root causes of chronic disease and behavioral health conditions while advancing a more sustainable future for healthcare delivery.
• Complete integration with Loma Linda University Health’s Epic electronic medical record platform enables seamless care coordination, documentation, patient engagement, and reporting directly within existing provider workflows.
• Prospective research study funded by Ardmore Institute of Health will evaluate clinical outcomes, healthcare utilization, patient and provider experience, and the financial sustainability of a whole-person primary care model for Original Medicare populations.
  
  

LOMA LINDA, Calif. and AUSTIN, Texas, June 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Loma Linda University Health (LLUH) and Nudj Health (Nudj) today announced the launch of a technology-integrated whole-person care initiative embedded directly into Loma Linda University Faculty Medical Group Department of Family Medicine — a collaboration leaders believe could help establish a scalable new model for the future of primary care delivery in the United States.

The implementation combines Nudj Health’s lifestyle medicine, behavioral health, longitudinal patient engagement, connected monitoring, and analytics platform directly within Loma Linda University Faculty Medical Group Department of Family Medicine clinical workflows and Epic electronic medical record infrastructure.

The collaboration is designed to address some of the most significant challenges facing healthcare today, including rising chronic disease burden, behavioral health complexity, physician burnout, aging populations, and the long-term sustainability of Medicare.

Unlike standalone wellness or digital health programs, the initiative is designed as an operational extension of primary care itself — integrating whole-person care delivery directly into routine clinical practice.

The initiative is led clinically by Dan Reichert, MD, Chair of the Loma Linda University Faculty Medical Group, Department of Family Medicine.

“Primary care physicians are managing increasingly complex chronic disease and behavioral health conditions within highly fragmented systems of care,” said Dr. Reichert. “We believe the future of primary care must evolve toward more proactive, longitudinal, and whole-person models that address the underlying drivers of disease while strengthening relationships between patients and care teams. This collaboration creates an opportunity to explore how lifestyle medicine, behavioral health integration, and technology can work together within academic medicine to improve outcomes and support more sustainable care delivery.”

A central component of the initiative is a complete integration of LLUH’s Epic EMR platform with Nudj Health’s enterprise technology infrastructure, enabling clinicians to collaborate through streamlined workflows, documentation, patient engagement, and longitudinal reporting capabilities embedded directly into daily care delivery.

The collaboration builds upon Nudj Health’s previously reported groundbreaking outcomes achieved through its multi-year partnership with Corewell Health, which demonstrated significant improvements in weight reduction, HbA1C, cholesterol, depression and anxiety scores, and physical activity. In addition, a 50–70% reduction in encounter volume was observed across four high-burden chronic disease categories —diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and behavioral health — reflecting improved population health outcomes and reduced acute care utilization, saving the health system an average of $3,250 per patient for patients in the program for more than 4 months.

Leaders from both organizations believe the LLUH implementation represents the next evolution of that work — bringing a proven whole-person care operating model into one of the nation’s leading academic medical center primary care environments.

“This is not simply a new digital health deployment,” said Yuri Sudhakar, CEO of Nudj Health. “This collaboration is about helping redesign the future operating model of primary care in America. The burden of chronic disease and behavioral health conditions are overwhelming patients, physicians, health systems, and payers. The future will require deeply integrated whole-person care models where lifestyle medicine, behavioral health, longitudinal engagement, and technology are embedded directly into primary care workflows. Together with Loma Linda University Health, we believe we are building a scalable model that can help shape the future of primary care delivery nationally.”

The initiative also includes a prospective research study supported through grant funding from Ardmore Institute of Health (AIH), a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing whole-person health and lifestyle medicine.

The research initiative will evaluate:

• Clinical outcomes, including key metabolic and mental health data
• Healthcare utilization and cost trends (including tracking medication de-prescribing)
• Patient engagement and satisfaction
• Provider experience and satisfaction
• Financial sustainability associated with caring for Original Medicare populations using a whole-person primary care model
  

“For decades, healthcare has largely operated as a system designed to react to disease after it has already progressed,” said Ron Stout, President and CEO of Ardmore Institute of Health. “We believe the future requires scalable models that help patients and clinicians address the root causes of chronic disease through prevention-focused, whole-person care. This collaboration between Loma Linda University Health and Nudj Health represents the type of clinical innovation and research initiative needed to explore how lifestyle medicine and longitudinal care delivery can support a more sustainable healthcare system.”

Leaders involved in the initiative believe the collaboration reflects growing national momentum around prevention-focused medicine, behavioral health integration, value-based care transformation, and the modernization of primary care infrastructure.

"For too long, prevention and lifestyle medicine have been treated as adjacent to medicine rather than central to it," said Padmaja Patel, MD, President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and Chief Medical Officer at Nudj Health. "What makes this collaboration different is rigor — embedding whole-person care into everyday primary care and pairing it with academic research to measure whether it improves outcomes, lowers cost, and proves sustainable in Medicare populations. This is how lifestyle medicine becomes the standard of care, not the alternative to it.”

About Loma Linda University Health

Loma Linda University Health is an internationally recognized academic health system and one of the nation’s leading institutions advancing whole-person care, medical education, clinical research, and faith-based healthcare delivery. Widely recognized for its leadership in lifestyle medicine, preventive health, and healthy aging, LLUH serves communities throughout Southern California and beyond. Learn more at https://lluh.org

About Ardmore Institute of Health

Founded in 1947, the Ardmore Institute of Health is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing whole-person health, lifestyle medicine, prevention, and healthcare transformation through research, grants, education, and strategic initiatives. Learn more at www.ardmoreinstituteofhealth.org

About Nudj Health

Nudj Health is the clinical operating system for disease prevention, remission, and the compression of morbidity. Built for health systems, physician groups, employers, and payers, Nudj embeds lifestyle medicine, behavioral health, longitudinal patient engagement, connected monitoring, and analytics directly into clinical workflows — helping care teams treat the root causes of chronic disease rather than manage it indefinitely. The result is measurable improvement in patients' health and quality of life, lower total cost of care, and a more sustainable model for the future of healthcare. Nudj Health is an ACLM Certified Lifestyle Medicine Treatment Program and a participant in the CMS ACCESS Model. Learn more at https://www.nudjhealth.com/        

Media Contacts

Heather Valentine
HValentine@llu.edu

Chris McCarthy
chris@nudjhealth.com

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.