Employer Wellness

Wellness screenings are significant programs to identify chronic conditions in their early stages. Once identified, wellness behavior modification programs can help prevent a disease from progressing. Working with local hospitals and other corporations, you can get information on providing assessment and behavior modification programs that might better your employees’ health and save your organization money in absenteeism, treatment for disease complications, and reduced work rate. Below are some ideas to help get you started.

Based upon your Employee Needs & Interest Survey and the demographics of your workplace, consider offering periodic screenings to find specific health risks such as:

• Blood Pressure Checks to identify staff members with pre-hypertension or hypertension (high blood pressure),
• Cholesterol Screenings for total, HDL (good cholesterol), LDL (bad cholesterol) and/or Triglycerides
• Blood Sugar Screenings fasting or non-fasting to screen for possible diabetes,
• Body composition, such as body mass index (BMI) or body fat measures
• Bone density for potential risk of osteoporosis,
• Cancer screenings such as, skin examinations, mammograms, or PSA screenings,
• Vision checks for glaucoma, or visual acuity
• Other wellness screenings depending on your worker population and needs

Your local hospital, business physician practice, or health department may support assistance. However, if you have employees you may want to concentrate on programs that will keep them healthy rather than screening for early identification of chronic disease. The focus of your wellness program might be healthy lifestyle practices to decrease risk and prevent disease.

In addition to the wellness screenings, consider offering a Health Risk Appraisal / Health Risk Assessment to all staff members. The Health Risk Appraisal / Health Risk Assessment will help to identify factors that may lead to additional risks, such as smoking history, stress levels, perception of health, family history, job satisfaction, support systems, and mental health. Often the evaluation results are included on the Health Risk Appraisal / Health Risk Assessment, which provides a more all-inclusive snap shot of health risks. The summary results offer the important information to plan appropriate interventions.

Corporate Health Promotion Program Interventions

The key to the effectiveness of screenings and Health Risk Appraisals / Health Risk Assessments (HRA’s) is the interventions or follow-up programs. The information from the screenings increases awareness and frequently motivates workers to consider making healthier changes. It’s the follow up interventions that offer the essential reinforcement and assistance needed for workers to actually make and maintain those changes. The interventions have the potential to include individual follow-up and ongoing counseling, individual or group health coaching on the risk factors, behavior modification programs, and/or corporation reinforcement. Examples include:

• Strategies to lower Blood Pressure (BP)
• Managing diabetes
• Taking care of your heart
• Healthier eating
• Weight loss strategies
• Improving physical activity
• Smoking Cessation

Naturally, this is for individual information only. Any follow-up interventions planned by the business would be based on interest expressed by the employee.

Based on the results and your Workplace Health Promotion Program Committee goals you are able to plan the best strategies for your company and employees. Consider the community resources available to offer services, such as health associations, hospitals, health care providers, and/or public health agencies.