Were you aware that as part of the health care reform law, small businesses (with 100 employees or less) will have an opportunity to get grant dollars from our government to implement workplace wellness programs? During fiscal years 2011 and 2012, there will be $200-million available for small business workplace wellness programs. Details regarding how to apply for these grants have not been released yet.

However, add this element of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act to those that cover preventive care procedures like mammograms and colonoscopies, and it’s obvious that our government is taking serious measures to promote preventive care and wellness in our new health care system.

Employer-sponsored wellness programs have been proven to be beneficial in a number of ways:

• Decreases in employee absenteeism and sick leave
• Increases in worker productivity
• Lower costs/less insurance claims
• Decrease in work related injuries

 

In fact, employers and employees are both in agreement that the employer has some responsibility in creating a positive, healthy atmosphere. According to research completed by STOP Obesity Alliance, 92 percent of employers at companies thought weight management programs were appropriate at work and eight out of 10 employees, no matter their weight, said weight management programs belong at work.

Many employers also bundle incentives into the wellness programs they initiate – like money, contributions to health savings accounts, gift certificates to spas or fitness facilities, etc. It just shows how important it is to employers for their employees to maintain healthy lifestyles – it benefits the business and it benefits the employee…a win/win.

Our Own Wellness Program

CareSource is not a small business – we have over 900 employees. However, since we are a Medicaid care coordination plan that promotes and develops programs around wellness for our members, we felt it was essential that we “walk the walk” by institutionalizing our own employer-sponsored wellness program. Wellness has always been a priority at CareSource, but we are enhancing and building our program to create a culture of health and wellbeing that is present and palpable in everything we do. We thought we would share what we are doing so far so that you might also take a look at creating or reviewing your own programs, and to see that implementing such a program really isn’t as hard as it might appear.

The first thing we did was lay the foundation that this is an employee led program. Our employee led team established our wellness mission and vision with the full support and encouragement of our executive team. So we know we have 100% agreement across the company.

Wellness Mission

To establish, encourage, and maintain a culture that promotes healthy lifestyles through education, environment, and policies to support employees’ efforts.

Wellness Vision

Create a community of health and well-being that improves health outcomes, reduces unnecessary health care costs and empowers individuals to take
an active role in their health.

Next, we are asking all of our employees to complete a health risk assessment. This will be confidential in nature, of-course, and will be used to understand health trends within our employees – not call out specific individuals regarding their health habits. There is an incentive all employees who fill out the assessment.

We are also forming an employee-led wellness committee within our organization. The committee will provide ongoing employee feedback, strategy recommendations and continuous improvement. The committee will then report to our executive advisory team. We will also have several employee led work groups to create activities and strategies in various areas within the wellness program, and report back to the committee. These work groups will be specifically responsible for:

• Program development, content and evolution
• Community engagement
• Communications methods and content
• WellZone (our in-house work out facility) and web site
• Wellness Wednesdays – designated day each month that will focus on a specific wellness initiative
• Incentive and engagement strategies
• Metrics and outcomes

 

We are calling this the Employees First© wellness program, and as we launch it, we will be looking to several initial indications of success before shifting our focus on longer term outcomes… Metrics we will be analyzing include:

• Completion of/participation in the health risk assessment
• HEDIS metric improvements
• Use of our online wellness tool (in development) that will be hosted on our intranet
• Use of the WellZone and participation in wellness activities across the sites
• Compliance with recommended preventive care guidelines

 

Do You Have a Wellness Program?

So our question to readers, does your business sponsor a wellness program? And if so, tell us a bit about it. We are always open to ideas and ways to build this program, and appreciate the advice from other businesses.