I suggested in my earlier post that employers who sponsor wellness programs may see limited employee engagement, experience short-term success and ultimately reap less in health care savings than they’d like. I introduced a way for employers to step up their wellness programs with health activation.
An Evidence-Based Approach to Wellness
A health activation program uses data and analytics to identify population trends and deliver prevention, early detection opportunities and health education. Data — including medical, and prescription drug claims — coupled with analytics, help create individual medical profiles.
With these profiles, a registered nurse or other wellness program administrator has a holistic view of an individual’s health care needs, and can:
- Connect individual’s with primary care providers for preventive examples, immunizations and screenings
- Provide counseling and education to those with chronic conditions
Improved Health Outcomes and Lower Costs
Evidence-based wellness programs have the potential to improve health outcomes and lower costs for employers. How? Through supportive health counseling and education, employees are guided to get appropriate care and take more active roles in managing their health. This can lead to earlier detection, lower treatment costs and better health outcomes.
Employers working with wellness program partners such as WellSpark Health can identify specific preventive care and health risk issues, develop focused strategies and put the right wellness programs in place to address them.
According to the Workplace Wellness Trends 2017 Survey, employers who implement wellness programs experience positive results:
Workplace Wellness Trends: 2017 Survey Report, International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans
In part 3 of this series on corporate wellness programs, I’ll explain a third category of wellness programs that layers in financial incentives, like premium discounts and lower copays, to further drive healthy clinical behaviors.
About Roberta (Bert) Wachtelhausen
Senior Vice President, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer oversees sales, underwriting and marketing for all ConnectiCare health plans. Her responsibilities also include senior leadership of WellSpark Health, an affiliate of ConnectiCare that offers wellness programs that improve employees’ health outcomes while controlling employer costs. Visit wellsparkhealth.com for more information.
