Center strives to keep people well

The best way to prevent illness is to avoid it. This is the idea behind the Executive Health Program at the Penn Diagnostic Center, a corporate medical treatment facility in Center City. Through wellness programs, physicals, on-site health screenings, employee fitness programs and nutrition counselling, the Center's program attempts to maintain the health of a company's employees. The purpose of the program is to increase productivity, which will benefit the company financially. The Penn Diagnostic Center has three goals, according to its president, Lawrence Spitz. It works "to meet the needs of businesses, corporations and organizations by keeping people healthy and preventing illness, to restore their injured workers to health, and to help them be certain that the health care given to their employees is both of good quality and at appropriate costs," Spitz said. The Industrial/Occupational Program, another program at the Penn Diagnostic Center, attempts to reduce worker's compensation costs. This program addresses the abuses of the worker's compensation system by both employees and medical providers and tries to control them by instituting a routine that an employee must follow in order to receive worker's compensation benefits. The employee must be examined by one of five pre-selected physicians initially, and must remain under that physican's care for two weeks. If, after the two-week period, the employee wishes to change physicians, he or she must notify the employer first. PDC provides physicans who encourage an appropriate but quick return to work so that costs can be minimized. The Penn Diagnostic Center was founded by Spitz in 1982 when he left the Health Evaluation Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. It has three fully-equipped and staffed medical facilities located in Philadelphia, West Conshohocken, and Mount Laurel, NJ. The Philadelphia facility was recently relocated, from Franklin Plaza at 16th and Race streets to 10 Penn Center at 18th and Market streets. The Center moved "to acquire more efficient space and to be more accessible to major Philadelphia clients," said Jayne Lester, PDC's marketing administrator. These clients include law firms, accounting firms and an oil shipping firm. The Penn Diagnostic Center also researches work-related ilnesses. Most recently, they have been trying to prevent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, a nerve damage in the hand due to repetitive motion such as working at a keyboard.