Group visits allow doctors to spend more time educating patients on preventing health problems, said Kristin Anderson, the physician running the pilot program, which began in October.

The group setting also creates a support network for patients as they try to change their diets and increase the amount of time they spend exercising.

“We’re trying to go a little bit upstream to try and focus on prevention,” Anderson said.

Doctors at the Reston clinic tell their patients about the sessions. The Fairfax County Community Health Care Network allows low-income patients to receive primary health care services at the public clinics.

One group session is conducted in English and one in Spanish each month.

Cultural attachments to certain foods can “create an amazing amount of push-back,” Anderson said. But in such instances she sees group relationships in play. One patient might try a new food, such as brown rice, and report on it to the group, Anderson said.

Each group session features a speaker who focuses on a topic related to nutrition, physical activity or other general health issues. At the end, Anderson briefly meets one-on-one with patients to discuss their progress and set small, achievable goals.

“It changes the interaction between the patient and the provider,” Anderson said.

Information in the program is from evidence-based medicine, said Anderson, who works part-time as a staff physician at the clinic and is a fellow in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Patient Zabiba Hassan of Reston had tried to lose weight in the past by subsisting on coffee for much of the day. Now, the mother of two is cutting back on “heavy” African foods and eating more vegetables and fruits. She also walks for exercise almost every day.

“Now, I’m feeling better than before,” she said.

Two medical student interns, Lilly Siems and Seth Holloway, are assisting Anderson with the program this summer. They are working to develop a standard six-month curriculum for the group visits so the program will be easier to expand to the county’s other four health clinics.

“Seth and I are working to create a very defined structure to the whole group visit process, just so it’s easier on the staff here,” Siems said.

The group visits are just one way the 20-year-old Fairfax County Community Health Care Network is trying to innovate, said Jean Glossa, the clinic director.

The clinics, which are operated by Molina Healthcare, offer on-site pharmacies with multilingual counseling about medications. A weekly women’s clinic session allows people to drop in for services with no appointment. The clinics also offer specialty services, such as a nurse who specializes in treating diabetes, a physical therapist and mental health services.

“A lot of our patients are transportation-challenged, so we don’t want to send them all over town,” Glossa said. “We know that the patients are much more apt to get the service if it’s provided right there.”