Corporate wellness incentive program inforamtion and resources

Health risk screening programs should be carried out on a one-on-one basis by trained health care professionals. Health risk measures should include the following -

o  Blood pressure (BP) measurements – at least two blood pressure measurements taken during the screening episode, using a mercury sphygmomanometers or regularly calibrated aneroids.    

o  Blood pressure treatment status – ascertain whether the participant is under a physician’s care, on any medication, on a prescribed diet, or any other kind of treatment for hypertension.    

o  Blood cholesterol measurement – sum cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol taken either using a properly tested and maintained table top blood analyzer providing immediate feedback to the patron, or sending blood to a laboratory providing feedback using a method that is as effective as immediate feedback.    

o  Cholesterol treatment status – ascertain whether the client is under a physician’s care, on any medication, on a prescribed diet, or any other kind of treatment for high cholesterol.    

o  Obesity – utilize an accepted method for estimating obesity. for example assess participants height and weight and use the 1959 Metropolitan Life Height/Weight charts or use Body Mass Index.    

   o Identify people  20 percent or more above their ideal weight.

o  Smoking status – assess whether the participant currently smokes cigarettes, whether the customer has quit or never smoked, and the number of cigarettes smoked/day.    

o  Exercise habits – screening questions may  be limited to frequency and duration exercise. Do participants exercise in a moderately vigorous fashion at least three times per week for 30 minutes or more.    

o  Diabetes – whether the patron has diabetes, and whether or not it’s currently under control. A blood glucose could  be also done via finger stick and desk top analyzer. Several manufactures make available cassettes which include cholesterol and glucose measurements.

o  Cerebrovascular disease or occlusive PVD – ascertain if the customer has had a stroke or other kind of capillary disease.

o  Family history of cardiovascular disease – ascertain whether any of the participants’ parents or siblings had a heart attack or sudden death due to heart disease before age 55.

o  Coronary heart disease – ascertain if the customer has had a heart attack or other kind of coronary heart disease.

o  Stress – participant’s assessment of stress in work and/or personal life. A series of well-tested and validated questions reviewing  levels of stress are available from the Employee Health Program.

o  Participant release form (see forms) – A release form is required in which the participant authorizes the wellness program to draw blood for testing to send information to the participant’s medical care provider if medical risks are identified, and to obtain information from the provider about diagnosis and prescribed treatment.

o  Participant interest survey – if an assessment of interest has not been gathered previously, the screening activity must assess levels of interest in health promotion programs like –  weight control, tobacco use cessation, fitness or exercise, stress management, nutrition, self-care, cholesterol control.

o  Health education messages – the screener must review with the participant his/her identified health risks and what they mean to the participant’s overall health, and give the participant a written record of the blood pressure, sum cholesterol, and any other physiological measures taken.

o  Referral of participants for treatment – participants with elevated risks should be referred to appropriate sources of diagnosis and possible treatment following nationally or locally recognized guidelines for such referral.

Demographic information should include location of the screening, workplace, client’s name, address, social security number, home and work phone numbers, sex, race, birthdate, relevant job information (e.g., hourly or salaried), department number, and work shift.

Wellness Program directors or providers should’ve a background in health promotion programming and a expert health-related degree or certification.

They should have expertise in content areas, planning, promotion, administration, analysis, and ability to grow a health promotion program and tailor the health promotion program to the worksite.

Health Promotion Program providers should’ve a quality assurance program for assessing  the effectiveness of service personnel, to assess satisfaction of participants, and for personnel training and continuing education.

An overall policy statement ought to be available from directors and wellness program vendors addressing the following issues -

o  Assurance of confidentiality of health data,

o  referral to health and medical care for at-risk participants,

o  follow-up with referred participants and those at-risk,

o  wellness program investigation on process and outcomes,

o  organization of the workplace for promotion of wellness and changes in corporate culture.

A clear contract or letter of agreement for services ought to be provided.

Incentives could be used to elevate participation rates, help with completion or attendance at health promotion programs, and to help individuals change or adhere to healthy behaviors.

The purpose of the incentive is to encourage employees to adopt positive behaviors or maintain an existing positive behavior.

Everybody who achieves a goal or maintains a behavior should receive something. Many organizations also provide incentives merely for participating in events.

Stay away from being the “best” or doing the “most.” Encouraging individuals  to be the best or doing the most promotes excessive behavior, discourages others, and creates elitism.

The best designed incentive programs are ones which are based on achieving goals that are attainable by most person. Recognition, acknowledgment by top management, or special privileges are examples of great intangible incentives.

Wellness Program Incentive Ideas -

o  Free or Low-Cost Incentives-     

   o Certificates

   o Movie passes

   o Recognition in worker newsletter

   o Mugs

   o Water bottles

   o Commendation from upper management

   o T-shirts

   o Hats

o  Moderate Cost Incentives –     

   o Entertainment tickets

   o Sweatshirts

   o Waist packs

   o Subscriptions to health magazines

   o Fitness and health books

   o Videos

o  High Cost Incentives –     

   o Week-end getaways

   o Dinner for two

   o Clocks

   o Watches

o  Other Incentives –     

   o Cash

   o Gift certificates

A major concern in wellness programming is attracting staff members to participate and maximizing participation. When introducing a wellness program, a letter briefly explaining the wellness program signed by the president or CEO is a great endorsement.

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

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

When choosing  a wellness program from a vendor you should ask the following questions -

o  Precisely how many workplaces have done the health promotion program?

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

o  What educational materials are used?

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

o  What are the techniques used to help change behaviors?

o  Does the health promotion program help people  move through stages of readiness to make health behavior changes?

o  How do you market the health promotion program to employees?

o  What follow-up do you provide?

o  How do you make referrals for medical care or other supportive services workers may need?

o  How do you know the wellness program works?

o  Exactly how do you measure participant satisfaction?

When staffing your health promotion program you need to consider whether to hire a wellness staff or contract with wellness experts from outside your company.

Small and medium size worksites do not ordinarily have a wellness professional on staff. If your worksite is in this category, you’ll need to contract with providers outside your organization.

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

When picking  a provider some key questions in the areas of staff, wellness 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 experts become wellness experts when they’re trained in the full range of wellness activities. Wellness experts are generalists who come from a broad variety of backgrounds and schooling.

They might be nurses, dietitians, health educators, counselors, exercise physiologists, or have other backgrounds. But as well to their main training, they know something about all wellness topics, including tobacco use, stress, exercise, and nutrition.

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

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

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

o  Wellness counselors work with staff after the screening to help them create and carry out a plan to reduce their risks and improve their health.

o  Health Promotion instructors teach courses and minigroups on different health topics.

A health promotion program in a small organization can be staffed by a single staff individuals who fills all three roles. Bigger worksites will use different individuals  to fill these roles.

When choosing  staff or choosing  among wellness businesses, ask the following questions -

o  Do prospective staff have a range of health backgrounds that’ll provide appropriate specialistise in the topics to be addressed?

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

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

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

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

An annual plan for the major wellness programs and activities is a useful management tool. This is an great wellness committee task. Frequently an activity and wellness theme per month is offered to workers.

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

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

A Health Risk Appraisal (HRA)  is sometimes used combined with a biometric screening.  An Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) is a computerized assessment tool which looks at an individual’s family history, health status, and lifestyle.

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

An Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) instrument is derived from an understanding of the during a disease. Based on this understanding, useful prediction instruments can 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 clients reduce risk factors which lead to the onset of unnecessary illness 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 is crucial to obtain direct measures of blood pressure, cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol.  The Health Risk Assessment (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 appraisal 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 could be computed based on the individual answers to the questionnaire and physiologic factors.  The health age may 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 businesses. Continuing research on HRAs is examining the efficacy of this tool.

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

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

The most common screening performed in health promotion programs is heart health assessment.

The screening can include a written heart health test, blood pressure measurement, cholesterol/HDL-cholesterol test, glucose (blood sugar), weight, educational materials specific to diet, nutrition, exercise, cholesterol, smoking, and weight.

The health specialist conducting the screening then provides a consultation and helps set objectives with the participant.

The backbone of health promotion programming at the worksite is biometric screening. It’s the first major activity a business ought to do when first starting a health promotion program.

Medical testing is usually used along with the administration of a Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) .

The most effective way to screen is to utilize a health expert trained in wellness screening techniques and counseling to privately and individually assess participants.

This wellness specialist takes a brief health history and measures blood pressure and cholesterol. With computerized cholesterol desktop analyzers, results are obtained in about four minutes.

Immediate feedback, consultation, and educational materials are provided. for those identified at-risk, follow-up appointments can be scheduled at this time.  The whole process takes about twenty minutes per individual.

The screening also provides an immediate opportunity to register participants in various health promotion programs based on their interests and identified health risks.

Health screening may be done each year and used to monitoring health risks within the worksite.

A biometric testing program needs to provide multiple opportunities for participation.  The service should be provided for all the various shifts of a business.  The screening program should be conducted in highly visible areas so the process can be observed.

Reluctant employees often like to be able to see what the wellness program is about before they participate. When wellness screeners are not busy, they ought to perform outreach going to areas where employees gather and try to recruit employees.

When well-planned and promoted, biometric screening can attract participation rates of 60% to 100%. These high participation rates have a positive impact on upper-level management producing support for further health promotion programming.