Oak Mountain Outdoor Health Care takes an innovative approach to redesigning medical care through launching new ways of thinking.

“We are not just treating symptoms — we are rebuilding health systems. Outdoor Healthcare stands for every individual’s right to heal in freedom, in community, and in connection with nature.”

-omohc.org

Cultural Reframing

Shift the public perception of care from institutional dependency to ecological belonging — where health is not received, but cultivated through relationship with people and place.

How technology can act as a bridge between biology, behavior, and environment, particularly in a model like Value-Based Outdoor HealthCare (VBOHC) where nature-based interventions are integrated with measurable health outcomes and epigenetic change.

The interconnected pathways between NBIs, health, climate: A Policy Proposal: Integrating Nature-Based Interventions into Mainstream Healthcare to Promote Health and Climate Resilience

A comprehensive framework for a model designed to cultivate values and life purpose while building and sustaining interpersonal relationships. I’ll structure it so it’s practical, research-informed, and applicable in individual, organizational, or therapeutic contexts.

• Physician Visits

  • Position them as a gateway to holistic care: routine visits are opportunities to assess eligibility for VBOHC interventions.

  • Physicians can prescribe nature-based or outdoor therapies in parallel with traditional treatment plans.

  • Integrate behavioral nudges for outdoor activity, mindfulness, or community engagement during follow-ups.

• Screenings

  • Use screenings (e.g., metabolic panels, cardiovascular risk, depression/anxiety scales) to stratify risk.

  • High-risk patients can be prioritized for targeted outdoor interventions that complement clinical care.

  • Use data from screenings to personalize the outdoor program, e.g., stress-reduction trails, forest bathing, or gardening therapy for metabolic syndrome.

• Epigenetics involves chemical modifications (like DNA methylation, histone modification, and non-coding RNA regulation) that turn genes “on” or “off.”

• These modifications are sensitive to environmental inputs, such as stress, diet, pollutants, social interactions, and exposure to nature.

• Positive environmental influences can promote expression of protective genes (e.g., those involved in anti-inflammatory or stress-resilience pathways), while negative environments can activate harmful pathways (e.g., inflammation, metabolic dysregulation).

Problem: Traditional healthcare often focuses on treating disease rather than preventing it, leading to high costs and limited improvements in overall population health.
VBOHC Solution: Shifts focus toward prevention, resilience, and holistic well-being. Outdoor, nature-based interventions encourage physical activity, stress reduction, and mental health support before chronic conditions develop.

To create an innovative hub where nature, health, and evidence converge, advancing outdoor-based interventions as a validated, value-driven model for improving mental, physical, and social health outcomes.

Mission:
To conduct rigorous research, deliver cutting-edge training, and host interdisciplinary conferences that accelerate the adoption of value-based outdoor healthcare interventions, improving health equity, sustainability, and patient-centered care.

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work.”
—John Gall, Systemantics (1975)

The law emphasizes evolution from simplicity: successful complex systems grow from smaller, functioning systems, rather than being designed fully formed.

How we are connecting Gall’s Law to Value-Based Outdoor HealthCare (VBOHC)!

Value-Based Healthcare (VBHC): A healthcare model that emphasizes outcomes that matter to patients relative to the cost of achieving them. Instead of paying for services or volume, payment is linked to health improvements, quality of life, and patient-centered results. Outdoor HealthCare / Nature-Based Interventions: Uses natural environments (parks, forests, blue spaces like lakes or rivers) to promote physical, mental, and social health. Examples include forest bathing, guided walks, gardening therapy, and wilderness therapy.

Differentiation of Self (DoS), a concept derived from Bowen Family Systems Theory, refers to an individual’s ability to maintain a strong sense of self while managing emotional connections with others. Higher levels of DoS are associated with improved emotional regulation, stress resilience, and healthier interpersonal relationships.

The dual burden of depression and diabetes represents one of the most complex public health challenges globally. Both conditions share bidirectional pathways involving stress, inflammation, lifestyle behaviors, and metabolic dysregulation (Moulton et al., 2015). Increasing evidence suggests that environmental factors—particularly exposure to natural environments—can influence gene expression through epigenetic mechanisms, including DNA methylation and histone modification (Browning & Rigolon, 2019).

Cultural Competence as an Integral Component of Value Based Outdoor HealthCare

Healing Intergenerational Trauma with Nature Experience

Because intergenerational trauma is inherited across generations, it can be fully healed by creating an environment where additional trauma does not occur for multiple generations. It can be healed even in the context of continuing stressors with the tools, inner resources, and support needed to care for symptoms and heal the root cause of the intergenerational trauma on physical/somatic, emotional, mental, cellular, and ancestral levels.