Posts from — July 2010

Wellness Program Step 1 –  Be sure to set the Foundation –  

Build Support Among All Levels of the Organization

A key to a successful Wellness Program requires management commitment and worker involvement.

Wellness Program Step 2 –  Form a Wellness Committee

An active Wellness Committee ensures employee involvement, provides buy-in, management support, and maintains a crew that is ready to act to integrate wellness programs.

Wellness Program Step 3 –  Gather Data to Identify Key Needs and Expectations

The next crucial component is to base the Wellness Program on the needs and interests of your corporation and its staff members.

Wellness Program Step 4 –  Establish Goals and Objectives

Objectives and objectives are the road maps to guide you where your program needs to go.   These are the foundation for planning and analyzing  activities to ensure that your wellness program is going to meet your unique needs.

Wellness Program Step 5 –  Create a Detailed Action Plan

There’s no such thing as over planning!  the best of intentions can get lost, overstepped, or forgotten without adequate planning, and then it would be all for naught.

Wellness Program Step 6 –  Pick and Implement a Plan

Armed with the needs assessment information, a Wellness Committee, and objectives and objectives, it’s now time to put your plan into action!

Wellness Program Step 7 –  Monitor and Evaluate Your Wellness Program

Evaluation is a necessary step to keep a program on target, as well as to ensure that the program is reaching its objectives or achieving the desired results.

Summary

These Seven Steps outline considerations for a comprehensive approach to establish an effective wellness program.  Can you implement components of wellness activities without following these steps?  

Definitely, but you might not have the sustainability or ability to obtain desired outcomes.  Following the Seven Steps does not have to be complicated or burdensome.  A very simple approach can achieve a successful wellness program!

Accordingly, to ensure a successful wellness program consider the key components as you plan your program or improve your current program –

• Executive Management Support and Employee Involvement

• Active Wellness Committee

• Program is Based on Staff Member Needs and Interests

• Goals and Goals are Established

• Detailed Action Plan Based on Resources and Budget

• Program Implementation and Internal Advertising and Marketing

• Analysis of Outcomes and Program

A major concern in health promotion programming is attracting staff to participate and maximizing participation. When introducing a health promotion program, a letter briefly explaining the health promotion program signed by the president or Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is a excellent endorsement.

Utilizing posters, newsletter articles, and flyers are good means of promoting the wellness program. Other promotional methods to consider are e-mail and announcements at staff meetings. Ask wellness committee members to recruit participants.

Once the health promotion program is kicked off you may want to provide an incentive for any staff member who recruits another staff member to any of the health promotion program offerings.

The program design choices depend on the goals and desired outcomes of your program.  If your goal is to help workers change behavior, reduce risk factors, or save health care dollars then your wellness program would be designed to accomplish those outcomes and a budget would be necessary to support that design.  

There are different wellness program design levels depending on desired outcomes and budgets.  Each level has advantages and disadvantages.  The intentions or results are quite different, are not interchangeable respecting obtaining the same results, and thus shouldn’t be confused.  

For example, scheduling activities such as an worker wellness fair or lunchtime education sessions, or having  flyers available don’t usually lead to behavior change, but might increase awareness on a topic.  

When the goal is behavior change then a different design is required, like Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs and Organizational Support.  The outline below describes the wellness design levels with a brief explanation.

Awareness Programs –   at this level a company makes health information available and accessible to employees.  This type of program can include  handouts on a selection of topics, wellness articles in newsletters, bulletin board displays, e-mail health messages, etc.  

Also, most wellness fairs are designed as awareness programs with providers providing information and providing medical testings to staff members.  

Awareness programs are cheap and do not require comprehensive employee or corporation time commitments.  Nevertheless, these programs do not generally result in healthier behavior change.  

Increasing awareness isn’t usually enough to generate lifestyle changes for most person, unless used to motivate workers to register for a program being offered at the company or community on the topic.  

An example of this would be providing information on the harmful effects of smoking and inviting employees who smoke to register for a smoking cessation class.

Education Programs –   Educational programs often provide more information on a topic and can also provide time for questions and answers, but are similar to awareness programs.  An example is lunch-n-learn sessions on a health related topic.  

These cost the corporation a little more than awareness programs; nevertheless, they are still inexpensive and do not require a great deal of time for planning or attending a session.  

Again, increasing awareness and providing information might not lead to the desired behavior change unless ongoing support or incentives are also planned.

Lifestyle/Behavior Change Programs –   These programs are designed as 4 to 12 weekly sessions or workshops to provide wellness education, address barriers and provide opportunities to practice the desired skills.  

Behavior change programs as a result require more corporation resources, cost more, and also require more staff member commitment, time and effort.  The results are often the desired positive lifestyle change, which when sustained can lead to potential cost savings.  

Examples are smoking cessation classes, weight loss and weight control meetings, or an ongoing fitness program.

Environmental and Organizational Support –   Environmental support is often considered the highest and most vital level to include when designing your wellness program for support and maintain healthy behaviors.  

These types of design choices include policy changes such as –

• Creating a tobacco-free workplace

• Designating a walking path,

• Establishing on-site gyms,

• Ensuring healthful vending machine selections,

• Offering healthful food choices in the cafeteria, and/or

• Establishing flex-time policies.  

Other examples include subsidizing healthy vending machines or cafeteria choices; reimbursing fitness center or weight loss and weight control program memberships; or providing insurance incentives for healthy behaviors.

Ideally, the wellness program design would include some of all these choices.  The more robust and integrated the approach, the more successful the results will be.  For  instance, a business can –

• have smoking cessation information available;
• can schedule a one hour awareness session on the harmful effects of smoking and how to quit;
• can begin an on-site tobacco use cessation program,
• supply self quit use of tobacco kits, or
• support employees to attend a community program; and/or
• on an environmental support level can establish a smoke-free workplace and grounds,
• offer lower insurance premiums for non-smokers, or
• provide pharmacological quit smoke aids for free.

Wellness Program –  Components for Success

There are a few key components or elements that ought to be considered to ensure the success of your Wellness Program or wellness program.  These include –  

• Senior Management Support and Worker Involvement

• Active Wellness Committee

• Program is Based on Worker Needs and Interests

• Goals and Goals are Established

• Detailed Action Plan Based on Resources and Budget

• Program Implementation and Internal Marketing

• Evaluation of Outcomes and Program

When selecting  a wellness program from a vendor you ought to ask the following questions –

• Precisely how many worksites have done the health promotion program?

• What types of staff member population was the health promotion program offered?

• What educational materials are used?

• Will the health promotion program meet the needs of employees?

• What are the techniques used to help change behaviors?

• Does the wellness program help individuals  move through stages of readiness to make health behavior changes?

• Exactly how do you market the health promotion program to employees?

• What follow-up do you provide?

• How do you make referrals for medical care or other supportive services staff members may need?

• Exactly how do you know the wellness program works?

• How do you measure participant satisfaction?

Major advantages of healthful staff members include –

• Lower Health Care Costs

• Decreased Injuries

• Reduced Absenteeism

• Increased Morale and Loyalty

• Higher Productivity

• Decreased Use of Healthcare Benefits

• Reduced Workers’ Compensation / Disability

• Positive Perception in Community

• Lowered Turnover

• Better recruitment for skilled employees

What’s NOT having a Wellness Program costing your company?  

Consider the health risk factors that are increasing chronic illnesss for adults –

• 59 percent of adults are overweight or obese

• More than 60% of American adults do not exercise regularly

• More than 75% of adults don’t consume the minimum recommendations for fruits and vegetables

• Heart illness is the most common cause of death and the leading cause of death in smokers

• 26 percent of workers announced they were often or very often burned out or stressed by their work  

Healthcare Costs are Increasing –   Healthcare costs are at a record high of $1.7 trillion with no signs of holding steady let alone decreasing.  The typical cost of annual health care spending is over $5,000 per individuals and with dependents almost $10,000.  

Recent data shows that healthcare related expenses now cost North Carolina businesses thousands of dollars per worker, per year.

Most Diseases can be Avoided –   Although it sounds unbelievable, experts indicate that avoidable disease makes up 60% – 70% of the entire burden of disease in the USA    

In North Carolina, it’s estimated that more than 53 percent of all deaths are preventable, and that 2/3 of all preventable deaths are due to tobacco use, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition.

Stress Levels are Increasing –   as business resources become less and corporations adopt leaner work practices, the effects of absenteeism and productivity lost have a greater impact.  

In a recent national poll, 78 percent of Americans described their jobs as stressful, and the majority felt that stress levels have become worse over the last 10 years.  Further, high levels of organizational stress can negatively affect a business by increasing injuries, absenteeism, and healthcare costs while lowering productivity.  

Simple solutions like stress management education, flexible work schedules, quality social interaction, and increased participation in corporation decision-making can improve stress levels in the workplace.

What is the Upfront Cost and Time Investment for a Wellness Program?

The cost depends on the kind of Wellness Program implemented.  There are a few options to promote employee health with advantages and disadvantages of each.  The program design depends on the objectives of the wellness program, the company resources, and the community resources available.  

Improving dietary practices, increasing exercise levels, managing stress or addressing work life balance issues, and reducing/eliminating tobacco use, are main strategies for preventing many of the most common avoidable chronic diseases.

The possibilities of how your corporation addresses these issues are endless and can range from increasing worker awareness, which could include purchasing a few  brochures on a selection of topics, and measuring walking distances around your facility.

Other possibilities include establishing organizational support such as funding a fulltime occupational health specialist or building an onsite health club.  

When well planned and based on your objectives, any of these programs can help you succeed.  Refer below to Wellness Program Design Options for more ideas.

When staffing your wellness program you need to consider whether to hire a wellness staff or contract with wellness specialists from outside your corporation.

Small and medium size workplaces don’t normally have a wellness professional on staff. If your workplace is in this category, you will need to contract with providers outside your company.

Large corporations have a few choices. They can hire a staff solely for the health promotion program, they can contract with outside wellness providers, or they are able to use a combination of internal staff and outside providers.

When picking  a provider some key questions in the areas of staff, health promotion program structure, process, and effectiveness need to be addressed. Each of these key questions is discussed in the following sections.

Health Promotion Business Staff

Health specialists become wellness specialists when they’re trained in the full range of wellness activities. Wellness specialists are generalists who come from a wide variety of backgrounds and schooling.

They may be nurses, dietitians, health educators, counselors, exercise physiologists, or have other backgrounds. But also to their primary training, they know something about all wellness topics, including smoking, stress, exercise, and nutrition.

They also know how to engage and support people  in making and sustaining health improvements and have good people  skills.

Ordinarily, wellness specialists at worksites fall into three broad categories, wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and wellness instructors.

• Health Promotion screeners introduce staff to the health promotion program, take health measurements, collect health-related information, provide initial counseling, and help staff define for themselves what they need and want in a health promotion program.

• Wellness counselors work with workforce after the screening to help them develop and carry out a plan to reduce their risks and improve their health.

• Wellness instructors teach courses and minigroups on different health topics.

A health promotion program in a small organization may be staffed by a single staff person who fills all three roles. Bigger workplaces will use different people  to fill these roles.

When picking  staff or picking  among wellness companies, ask the following questions –

• Do prospective personnel have a range of health backgrounds that’ll provide appropriate expertise in the topics to be addressed?

• Have prospective staff functioned well as wellness screeners, wellness counselors, and/or wellness instructors?

• Will this staff include individuals  from the ethnic and racial backgrounds found in your worker population?

• Is each worker comfortable with the range of backgrounds found in your worker population, and able to communicate effectively with the various social and educational levels of your employees?

• Do staff members have a warm, but specialist, counseling style when interacting with employees?

A Wellness Program is an organized program to assist and support workers in establishing healthier lifestyles.  This can include increasing staff member awareness on health topics, scheduling behavior change programs, and/or establishing business policies that support health-related objectives.  

Programs and policies that promote increased physical activity, use of tobacco avoidance and cessation, and healthy food selections are a few examples.  

Dimensions of Wellness

Wellness is more than physical fitness.  In addition to physical fitness, the dimensions of optimal health include

• Spiritual Wellness

• Emotional Wellness

• Social Wellness

• Intellectual Wellness

These dimensions are often depicted as a “life wheel” with examples of health components that include –

• fitness,
• nutrition,
• purpose in life,
• financial planning,
• social connections and support systems,
• stress management,
• mind-body health,
• career planning and
• continued learning.  

The key for individual health is keeping the “life wheel” in balance.  A robust wellness program addresses most, when not all, of these dimensions.

Why Corporate Wellness?

Staff Members spend a great deal of time on the job, and the truth is that our traditional work-week is increasing.  In fact, the typical American now works about 47 hours per week.  

Plus, technologies like modems, laptops, cellular phones, voice and email have blurred the work-life boundary.  These realities cut down on the amount of time that the average individual is able to devote to wellness pursuits, and yet employees are expected to be at top performance when at work.

A recent research study  by the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses found that corporate wellness or wellness programs are successful in assisting workers make positive health changes due to a few factors such as convenience, environmental support, and coworker or social acceptance.  

What’s the Link between Wellness and the Workplace?

Programs and policies that promote healthy behaviors can make a big difference on worker wellness AND have an impact on the corporation’s bottom line.   Studies have shown that for every dollar invested by employers in corporate wellness/wellness programs, there were savings ranging from $1.49 to $4.91 with a median savings of $3.14*.  

In company terms, that’s more than a 3 – 1 minimum return on investment – a number that is hard to ignore, and a best practice that should warrant serious consideration from businesses.  

In truth, a corporate wellness literature review posted in Wellness Practitioner Journal found –  

• 19 studies found a 28.3% reduction in sick time

• 16 studies demonstrated a 5.6 – 1 return on investment

• 23 showed a 26.1 percent reduction in healthcare costs

• 4 found a 30 percent reduction in direct medical and workers’ compensation claims

There is little doubt that a extensive wellness program targeted to meet a corporation’s specific needs can save money by decling absenteeism, lowering healthcare expenditures, decling worker turnover, and increasing productivity.

• United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2003

An annual plan for the major health promotion programs and activities is a useful management tool. This is an great wellness committee task. Very often an activity and wellness theme per month is offered to workforce.

Some companies pick to follow a National Health Observances calendar which offers advantages.  The materials developed by these various national health companies are very credible.  The materials are generally high quality and available free or at a nominal cost.

The organization benefits from additional publicity that occurs in various media throughout the community related to the national observance. for planning suggestions you could want to utilize the HOPE Publications Wellness Resource Creating Guide available for free at this Web site.

Ten Steps Toward Strategic Wellness Programs

The Wellness Program management world is evolving quickly. Each month, there are new research findings that support the premise that Wellness Programs and disease management have a long-term impact on healthcare costs.

Many large companies that began Wellness Programs three to five years ago are showing savings in health, disability, and employees compensation costs. Small to mid-size companies are watching all this and wondering where to begin with wellness.

Getting  senior management support and budget approval is among the challenges at the starting of a Wellness Program. This is the case because Wellness Programs could be expensive, averaging $150-300 per staff member per year in large corporations.

Most of the savings aren’t realized for a number of years. This long-term investing is hard for companies on the move.

The key to success for Wellness Programs is to take a strategic approach. Here are ten steps to consider when beginning a Wellness Program.

1. Start with  upper management. Without  upper management support, a wellness strategy can fall flat. Start with the health of your executive team and discover your wellness champions at the top of the organization.

2. Analyze the problem. Look at your healthcare claims and analyze the trends. Which conditions are driving your medical, disability, and workers’ compensation claims and which are modifiable? What’s worked and what has not therefore far? What is the long-term impact of doing nothing?

3. Hold an initial wellness meeting. Invite your key stakeholders both inside and outside the corporation. Ask your broker to facilitate the meeting and invite key health vendors including health, disability, Worker Assistance Program (EAP), fitness, and occupational nursing.

Review claims and utilization data and identify key areas of concern. Look at current offerings and see how they can be tailored to the needs of the population.

4. Consider both healthy and unhealthy workers. Since 85% of claims are ordinarily attributed to 15% of claimants, it’s essential to reach those with the most costly conditions while also reaching individuals  who are at risk for developing preventable illnesses in the future.

Voluntary wellness programs like lunchtime wellness workshops miss many of the individuals  who need them most. Consider programs that are population-wide or target intact workgroups. Wellness incentives help but don’t motivate everybody.

5. Be sure to set short-term objectives for the wellness programs. Be sure to set some realistic short-term objectives based on your key areas of concern. Are there any plan design changes that could have an immediate impact on spending? Are there some programmatic actions that could have immediate results?

6. Find out what employees are thinking. Hold some focus groups to determine where individuals  are with wellness. What’s working? What isn’t? How much interest do individuals  have in the Wellness Programs? What obstacles and barriers are employees experiencing when they try to change behavior?

7. Make certain you have a high-impact Worker Assistance Program (EAP). Your first wellness dollars ought to go into upgrading your Worker Assistance Program (EAP). A highly utilized Worker Assistance Program (EAP) can provide a foundation for all your future wellness activities.

A good Worker Assistance Program (EAP) is a trusted link to the hearts and minds of staff members. at no additional cost, the Worker Assistance Program (EAP) can provide needed follow-up coaching and personal attention for staff members who are working on modifiable health behaviors or involved in disease management programs.

Nutritionists, fitness, pregnancy, and stress management experts are all part of a high-value Staff Member Assistance Program (EAP).

8. Be certain to set three to five year objectives for health care savings and measure them. Get help from your broker and insurance carrier help you on long-term objectives for your health, disability, and employees compensation plans.

Establish program metrics that’ll help you to measure ROI. Go beyond participation rates, completion rates and program satisfaction. Measure changes in readiness, changes in behavior, and changes in risk factors. Establish rigorous methods to measure healthcare savings over the long term.

9. Make sure to set objectives for organizational health. Consider the more intangible benefits of a wellness program and quantify them whenever possible. Include staff member turnover rates, cost of new hires, staff member morale, benefit satisfaction data, and company of option issues in establishing objectives. Establish ways to measure success in these areas.

10. Add specifics to your short and long-term plan. Include a program strategy, a communication strategy, and an incentive strategy that will fit with your corporate culture. Focus on integration of related components along a health continuum with communications that are focused, simple, and human.

Establish a budget that includes key components like consumer education, wellness, health risk (assessment|appraisal}s, and regular biometric screens.

A Health Risk Assessment (HRA)  is sometimes used coupled with a medical testing.  An Health Risk Assessment (HRA) is a computerized assessment tool which looks at an individual’s family history, health status, and lifestyle.

An Health Risk Assessment (HRA) seeks to identify precursors associated with premature death or serious illness and quantifies the probable impact for each individual.

An Health Risk Assessment (HRA) instrument is derived from an understanding of the at a disease. Based on this understanding, useful prediction instruments may be constructed to assess the health risks of an individual. Person with a higher number of health risks tend to have more serious health problems over time.

Drawing attention to their health risks can help customers reduce risk factors which lead to the onset of unnecessary disease and subsequent premature death.

The questionnaire covers lifestyle habits (such as tobacco use, seat belt use, and exercise) and physical measures (such as cholesterol, blood pressure levels, height, and weight).

For accuracy, it’s crucial to obtain direct measures of blood pressure, cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol.  The HRA also provides recommendations and indicates what risks are modifiable. Kinds of measures to assess health risks are discussed under Screening Programs.

The impact of a health risk assessment is much greater when it is given in-person, with immediate feedback to the patron. This also provides an opportunity to invite the patron’s participation in continuing health counseling and to gain their written consent to do pro-active outreach to them.

A health age may be computed based on the individual answers to the questionnaire and physiologic factors.  The health age might indicate the individual to be younger or older than their chronological age.

Health Risk Assessment (HRA) programs are one the most prolific kinds of wellness activities utilized by organizations. Continuing research on HRAs is examining the efficacy of this tool.

One of the large benefits of this tool is that it can provide an aggregate group report of a business and can be utilized as an analysis tool.

Detailed information is available from the Society of Prospective Medicine (www.spm.org/desc.html) who publishes a handbook on HRAs.