Northfield’s City Council has hit the pause button on a proposed contract with Sigma Tactical Wellness, following an analysis from the council’s resident physician which cast doubt on some of the company’s claims and the quality of its cardiovascular screening program.
By a 5-1 vote, councilors voted to set aside the contract recommended for adoption by Police Chief Mark Elliott and instead pursue a cardiovascular screening and wellness program for officers in partnership with local healthcare institutions and other community resources.
The motion was brought forward by Councilor Jami Reister, a longtime Family Medicine physician at Northfield Hospital + Clinics who was appointed to the city owned healthcare institution’s Board of Directors in 2022.
Reister applauded Elliott for bringing the issue of officer wellness to the council’s attention, expressing as she had at the prior week’s work session deep concern and alarm with studies indicating that police officers have a significantly shorter lifespan than the general public.
“That the people keeping us safe are experiencing a two decade shorter lifespan than we are, that’s not acceptable,” Reister said. “We need to support and value the health of our officers obviously, because it’s the right thing to do.”
Alarmed by the high rate of heart attacks and heart disease among even relatively young officers, several local departments have worked with the Austin, Texas-based healthcare firm, including the Faribault Police Department and Rice County Sheriff’s Office.
Elliott brought the plan to council with the goal of enrolling officers in Sigma’s three year program alongside the Farmington and Rosemount PDs. The city would have picked up the bulk of the cost, with officers expected to chip in $149 in year one and $49 in years two and three.
Had all Northfield officers chosen to participate in the voluntary program, the cost to the city would have come out to about $18,200 in year one, which Elliott said could have been covered by the special, one time public safety aid authorized by the state legislature last year.
However, Reister said she could not support approving a contract with Sigma after coming to the conclusion, following thorough review, that the company’s program does not align with current best care practices as informed by the latest peer-reviewed research.
While Elliott’s presentation cited a number of research articles to defend the merits of the program, Reister said that the sources were provided by Sigma, a for-profit healthcare company, and appeared to be antiquated, misleading or biased.
“It’s important to remember that not all articles cited as research are credible or have merit,” Reister said. “Just because they are referenced or published does not mean that they have equal value to others.”
As part of her effort to inspect Sigma’s claims, Reister said that she called the company multiple times but received no response, forcing her to rely on analysis of the company’s website and public statements as well as consultations with other experts in cardiac care.
Reister said that several tests which Sigma includes as part of its cardiac screening program, such as an “active electrocardiogram” and the “cardiometabolic stress test,” were not referred to by traditional scientific terms, raising some questions as to their precise nature.
In general, Reister said that a stress test, electrocardiogram, and carotid imaging are currently not normally recommended by most major medical organizations for cardiac screening purposes, because of a lack of “specificity and sensitivity.”
“What we are doing is setting people up for potentially false positives that leads down the road of additional testing,” Reister said. “We can actually cause harm by testing inappropriately.”
Reister further contested the company’s claims that measuring Lipoprotein-Associated Phospholipase A2, or Lp-PLa2, is an effective way of detecting cardiac disease, stating that it is only one marker of inflammation in cardiac disease.
Elliott shared with the council an article co-authored by Sigma co-founder Dr. Jon Sheinberg earlier this year, which argued that measuring Lp-PLa2 is a more effective way of detecting cardiac risk than the Framingham Risk Score and the Coronary Artery Calcium Score.
However, Reister said that the test has been abandoned by the Mayo Clinic and other leading medical institutions because it has not been shown to be any more useful in detecting cardiac risk and disease than other, already existing standards of care.
Nonetheless, Reister said she firmly believes that Northfield police officers are very much in need of cardiac screening and wellness programming, and offered to help look further into what options the city may be able to pursue.
For his part, Dr. Sheinberg responded in a statement on behalf of Sigma Tactical Wellness that he is glad to see the council openly discussing how to reduce the alarming rate of heart disease and corresponding decrease in officer lifespans.
“Although we are disappointed that the city has chosen not to use Sigma Tactical Wellness as their vendor, we are nonetheless grateful for the opportunity and will remain available should their needs change,” Sheinberg further stated. “I have reached out to Dr. Reister for a professional to professional discussion in order to provide clarification and to answer questions she may have regarding our program.”
Mayor Rhonda Pownell granted Reister additional time to complete her remarks, and upon their completion offered praise for her colleague’s expertise, due diligence and commitment to doing right by Northfield’s police officers, a goal she said was shared by the entire council.
Councilor Brad Ness offered a lonely voice in favor of approving the Sigma contract. Ness said the services offered by Sigma are relatively affordable, and noted that the company has won over the trust of other local departments.
While acknowledging that there is “some concern about how Sigma is handling their testing,” Ness noted that for Minnesota cities, law enforcement has traditionally been by far the greatest source of workers compensation, and said that steps must be taken to reduce claims.
Pownell said that when the proposal was initially presented at the work session, it seemed like a “no brainer,” given how important she and other members of the council believe it is to look after the well being of city law enforcement.
After hearing Reister’s presentation, Pownell said she was convinced to back a “pause” to do additional due diligence and potentially lay the groundwork for a cardiac screening and treatment program in partnership with local healthcare institutions including Northfield Hospital + Clinics.
Questioned by Councilor Davin Sokup quizzed Reister as to what she envisions an alternative program could look like, Reister said that while she hasn’t had the time to research if other communities have followed a similar locally based model.
However, Reister said that she believes Northfield could potentially launch its own program with the support of Northfield Hospital + Clinics. She further warned that embracing a contract with Sigma might not provide the help Northfield police need.
“I have to caution that doing something doesn’t mean doing the right thing,” Reister said. “It is not appropriate to provide individuals with inappropriate testing, telling them that this is the right thing.”
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