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QUINCY, ILL. -- Quincy Medical Group announced a major expansion to its wellness initiative Wednesday.

Three new businesses have joined QMG under its comprehensive plan called Bridge the Gap to Health.

There are now several groups in the community that will work together to help make you a healthier person.

This new Bridge the Gap umbrella not only impacts the Quincy community, but the Tri-State area as well.

"It takes advantage of both some of our existing services as well as numerous new partnerships with various local businesses, national businesses, and community organizations," said QMG CEO Aric Sharp.

One of those partnerships is with six time Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Her program Gold Medal Moves is a six week community wide weight loss movement.

"You might use the word "Gold Medal" but it's really trying to get people up moving. QMG is in the forefront a part of this movement. You're talking about obesity that's affecting not only this community but our communities across the nation," said Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

QMG CEO Aric Sharp says getting healthy can be easier than people think.

"What's important and what we're challenging people to do is not feel like they have to do 100 things to improve their wellness but pick one and get started and that can lead to and create momentum to an overall improvement in a lot of different areas in their daily life," said Sharp.

"Obesity has been a problem for years, so now it's really about trying to make sure that people have a healthy lifestyle," said Joyner-Kersee.

The Bridge the Gap initiative started ten years ago with the launch of the Bridge the Gap race.

Another one of those national businesses is Health Management Resources.

HMR is a data-driven medically managed weight-loss program.

The HMR program treats patients who have an average of 50 to 150 pounds to lose and have other serious medical problems.

Another benefit of the program is getting people off medications for chronic illnesses.

Jim Early and Steve May, both of HMR, say they are excited to bring this program to Quincy.

"Even though all of the medical parameters get better - your blood pressure gets better, your diabetes gets better - the thing that gets better the most is the level of energy and the level of hope and optimism you have when you're engages in a program that clearly gets the job done," said Jim Early.

"This is really the cornerstone of the reaching the medically at risk patient in the community and we're very pleased to bring the HMR program to QMG so we can start treating patients in the community," said Steve May.