For people living with chronic disease, daily life can feel like a series of difficult decisions. Should you start a new medication? Push through fatigue? Try to exercise or worry that movement might make symptoms worse? Beyond prescriptions and follow-up visits, many people are left wondering how to manage symptoms in the hours and days between appointments.
At Lee Health in Southwest Florida, a six-week workshop series is designed to help answer those questions by teaching patients practical skills to manage their conditions with greater confidence.
Lee Health is part of the AMA Health System Member Program, which provides enterprise solutions to equip leadership, physicians and care teams with resources to help drive the future of medicine.
Since 2013, Lee Health has offered the “It’s All About You” chronic disease self-management program. The small group workshops meet once a week for six weeks, either in person or virtually, and are available at no charge to community members.
Led by trained facilitators and grounded in an evidence-based curriculum developed through decades of research, the program focuses on decision-making, problem-solving and action planning—tools that help patients manage symptoms, communicate more effectively with physicians and improve day-to-day quality of life.
“The research demonstrated that participants who completed these workshops have better health outcomes, better quality of life and a decrease in hospitalization and emergency department visits,” said Sharon Krispinsky, RN, BSN, lead nurse for the chronic health programs at Lee Health and a certified diabetes care and education specialist.
“We survey participants prior to the start of the workshop and then at the completion of the workshop and we consistently see better health outcomes and better care outcomes with the participants who complete the six-week workshop,” Krispinsky said.
Here is how the “All About You” chronic disease self-management program helps patients at Lee Health.
Teach practical self-management skills
Over six weeks, participants learn tools they can use immediately in daily life. The workshops cover physical activity and safe movement, nutrition basics, medication management principles, mindfulness, breathing techniques and sleep strategies.
This length of time for the program was deliberately chosen because “it became very clear that people needed to attend four or more sessions to get good benefit,” said Kate Lorig, DrPH, RN, who helped develop the original program model and is a partner at Self-Management Resource Center, which provides licenses and training for a series of self-management workshops across the U.S.
“If we ran a four-week session, a large number of people would miss a week for one reason or another. But if you do six weeks, we know that 70% of the people who start the program will finish it,” Lorig added.
Very often, Krispinsky said, people think medication is the only solution.
“It does help. It’s an important tool, but we forget that there are so many other tools that we should be using,” she said.
For example, participants also discuss how to increase physical activity safely. They review healthy eating principles and learn how to read food labels. Additionally, they practice communication skills to strengthen conversations with loved ones and physicians.
At the heart of the curriculum are three foundational tools: decision-making, problem-solving and action planning. That is why each week, participants create a personal action plan, which is a realistic goal they commit to working on before the next session. It may involve walking three times a week, practicing a breathing exercise or adjusting hydration habits.
It is “something that they want to work on in the coming week that’s going to improve some aspect of their health or life in general,” she said.
The following week, participants review what worked and what did not. Over time, that structure builds confidence and reinforces problem-solving skills.
Address the symptom cycle
Rather than focus on one diagnosis at a time, the workshops address a broader pattern Krispinsky describes as a common “symptom cycle.”
“We teach the same information no matter what the chronic condition you have is,” she said. “Because the common symptom cycle that everyone with a chronic health condition has is they often have poor sleep, physical limitations, pain, stress, difficulty with emotions and fatigue.”
For example, fatigue may stem from a chronic condition, but it also may be related to dehydration, poor sleep or medication side effects.
“We try to expand their knowledge base,” Krispinsky said. “There are numerous causes for these symptoms, and there’s so much they can do at home beyond the physician’s office.”
That approach encourages participants to look at symptoms more holistically and to prepare thoughtful questions for their physicians.
Complement physician care
The program is designed to complement—not replace—medical care from physicians and their care teams.
“We need to adhere to the curriculum from the Self-Management Resource Center,” Krispinsky said. “It’s not a time for innovation because it is very evidence-based and it’s taught worldwide."
Lee Health uses a master trainer model to guide the program. Krispinsky and a colleague serve as master trainers and oversee 12 to 15 volunteer leaders, many of whom are former participants. Each leader is trained to avoid offering individualized medical advice and to direct clinical questions back to physicians.
Lorig emphasized the importance of that boundary.
“We never give medical advice. Our job is to help people gain the confidence to live their lives the 99% of the time they’re not in direct medical care,” she said.
Doctors, she noted, often do not have 14 or 15 hours to guide patients through behavior change. These structured workshops can help to fill that gap while maintaining clear guardrails.
“Physicians can say to people: lose weight. They can say to exercise. They can even say to walk 15 minutes twice a day,” Lorig said. “What we can do is help people actually institute those things into their lives.”
Measure outcomes and confidence
Lee Health surveys participants before and after the workshops to measure changes in confidence and symptom management. In 2025, participants consistently report improved health outcomes.
The surveys also assess how confident participants feel about their understanding of information provided by their doctors, which is an important factor in strengthening the patient-physician relationship.
Expand access across the community
Anyone 18 or older with a chronic condition can enroll in the programs at Lee Health. Participants may self-refer or be referred to by a physician.
“By and large, the majority access us through self-referral,” said Krispinsky, who promotes the workshops through community outreach, media releases and public speaking engagements.
“Lee Health does these at no charge because our whole mission is to keep our community healthy, well and decrease utilization to our health system,” she said. “It’s right in alignment with what our mission and vision is as a health system.”
Group sizes are intentionally small, at about eight to 12 participants for in-person sessions and six to 10 for virtual workshops. For in-person sessions, Lee Health offers workshops at multiple locations throughout Lee County and provides virtual options to reduce travel barriers for patients.
The health system also offers a workplace version structured as twice-weekly one-hour lunch sessions. This model places additional emphasis on work-life balance, time management and stress management while maintaining the core self-management principles.
Empowerment beyond medication
Chronic disease management does not end when a patient leaves the clinic, with most decisions happening at home between appointments.
“There’s so much they can do as an individual to manage that chronic health condition,” Krispinsky said.
At Lee Health, the workshops represent more than education sessions. They are part of a broader strategy to support patient confidence, improve quality of life and strengthen community health.
For patients, the message is clear with these chronic care programs: medication matters, but so do skills, support and structured problem-solving. Those tools can make a meaningful difference in how chronic conditions are managed day to day.
