From American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM): Exercise is Medicine.
Do you have the Physical Activity Vital Sign (PAVS) integrated into the electronic health record at your health system? A newly published study shows how valuable PAVS (or the Exercise Vital Sign – EVS) can be when it comes to identifying patient groups at risk for adverse health outcomes.
This study of approximately 50,000 people with COVID-19 found that:
- Regular physical activity provided strong protection from hospitalization, intensive care unit admission, and death
- Even inconsistent exercise lowered the odds for severe COVID-19 outcomes when compared to being completely sedentary
ACSM members Bob Sallis, M.D., FACSM, and Jim Sallis, Ph.D., FACSM, are co-authors of the paper and share an EIM perspective on this important work.