“Our health insurance had escalated to the point that we were considered max rated and were paying outrageous health insurance premiums,” president Anne Eilers said.

After some investigating and attending a wellness workshop in Kearney, it was decided to hire an outside wellness group to come onsite to perform employee health screenings.  Eilers felt there needed to be a local program that was more convenient, so she contacted Tri-County Hospital and the two created a program the hospital now calls its Industrial Wellness Program, headed by Cathy Sarnes, laboratory manager, and Sandy Nichelson, a registered nurse.

“The program basically consists of performing a thorough health screening of employees,” Sarnes said.

Yet while the health screening test is relatively simple, just a questionnaire and blood sample, the results are much more in-depth.  Read more...

Print Comment Font Size Digg del.icio.us Discuss article Tweet Wellness Programs Provide High Returns, Research Reveals Posted on: Thursday, 18 November 2010, 17:02 CST Employee wellness programs have often been viewed as a nice extra, not a strategic imperative. But the data demonstrate otherwise, according to a team of researchers led Their research shows that the return on investment on comprehensive, well-run employee wellness programs is impressive ” sometimes as high as six to one.The findings are compiled in a comprehensive piece in the December issue of Harvard Business Review titled “What’s the Hard Return on Employee Wellness Programs?” The subhead reads, “The ROI data will surprise you, and the softer evidence may inspire you.” ( ).To achieve those kinds of results, employers cannot merely offer workers a few passes to a fitness center and nutrition information in the cafeteria, the team reports. The most successful wellness programs are supported The team studied 10 organizations that have financially sound workplace wellness programs. They conducted interviews with senior executives, managers of health-related functions and focus groups of middle managers and employees ” in all, about 300 people.The team found companies in a variety of industries ” including Johnson & Johnson, Lowe’s, H-E-B and Healthwise ” have built their employee wellness programs on all six pillars and have reaped big rewards in the form of lower costs, greater productivity and higher morale. Those benefits are not easy to achieve, and verifiable paybacks are never a certainty, but the track record inspires emulation, especially when the numbers are studied, the report states.Behind the research are Berry, the Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence who also holds the rank of Distinguished Professor of Marketing as well as the M.B. Zale Chair in Retailing and Marketing Leadership at Mays Business School, Texas A&M University; Mirabito, an assistant professor of marketing at the Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University; and Baun, manager of the wellness program at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, a director of the National Wellness Institute and a director of the International Association for Worksite Health Promotion.Berry has spent more than 30 years studying corporate service quality, and conducted an in-depth service study of the Mayo Clinic to uncover fresh and innovative approaches to serving patients. He also serves as a Professor of Humanities in Medicine in the College of Medicine at The Texas A

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Nov. 19 (UPI) — Well-designed employee wellness programs can yield savings of as much as $6 for each dollar spent on the health intervention, U.S. researchers say.

Researchers led

Those with high-blood pressure or who are physically inactive declined

Richard Milani and Carl Lavie said one study involved a random sample of 185 workers and their spouses, who were not heart patients but received heart exercise training from an expert team.

Of those diagnosed at high heart risk — for body fat, blood pressure, anxiety and other measures — 57 percent were converted to low-risk status

In addition, a well-designed employee wellness program can translate into reduced employee turnover.

The findings are scheduled to be published in the December issue of the Harvard Business Review.

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Wellness program targets students Community , News , Schools Saturday, November 20, 2010 6:03 am It used to be that numbers like cholesterol levels and blood pressure weren’t a concern until people closed in on middle age.But these days testing is being done earlier and earlier, now even in local high schools.Under the auspices of the wellness programs at Mercy and Unity Hospitals, since 1995 high school students have been screened for potential high cholesterol, high blood pressure and unhealthy body mass index ” all precursors to future health problems like heart disease and stroke.According to Brenda Link, manager for the wellness programs at Mercy and Unity hospitals, “We talk to them about what those numbers mean and how lifestyle choices can make a difference,” said Link.If test results are really elevated, a letter goes home to parents with recommendations of next steps ” which can start a discussion with the family doctor and could initiate further testing or a recommendation for treatment or to a program.From a testing at Anoka High School Oct. 25, 27 letters were being sent home, said Link, due to those heightened risk factors.Since the program started at Coon Rapids High School in 1995, more than 9,000 students have been tested. It has now expanded to include high schools in Anoka, Fridley and Buffalo. Testing is done The results are consistent among the schools.According to Link, based on the data since 1995, 30 percent of the students in Anoka and Coon Rapids are at a higher risk of developing heart disease based on their blood pressure or total cholesterol readings.Fifty-four percent have tested borderline hypertensive with high blood pressure readings and 17 percent have a total cholesterol count over 170, the recommended number for students in the 15 to 18 age range.But those numbers are getting worse ” the trends are changing.”What we’ve noticed in the last three years that the numbers are going up,” said Link.Jeff Buerkle teaches health and physical education at Anoka High School. Since the wellness initiative expanded to include Anoka in 2007, anecdotally he feels the health of the students has been declining.Last month when the Anoka students were being tested, Buerkle said in an earlier class five or six students had total cholesterol readings above the suggested range, some near or above 200.According to Link, the statistics confirm that. More students are proving to be high risk, both in the blood pressure and cholesterol levels.But there is good news.While the health screenings take place during the students’ regular required health classes, Buerkle said it is in the healthy lifestyles class where they can talk about making changes, monitor the results and see the outcome.The elective for juniors and seniors is a two-trimester course where they are able to focus more specifically on making lifestyle choices.Buerkle also knows the students well enough to be realistic about the expectations for the teens.”To ask them to never go to a place like McDonald’s just isn’t realistic,” said Buerkle.Instead, they talk about choosing a small order of fries instead of a large one, or swapping out the quarter pounder with cheese for a regular cheeseburger.He can recall one student, a young girl with cholesterol levels well over 200, was able to bring it back into the normal range for a teenager, all through making healthier food choices and adding exercise.Supporting the programIt costs an average of $16.33 to have each student tested, said Link.The program is funding both In fact, it was a Lions member who first suggested bringing the testing into Coon Rapids High School, almost 15 years ago.And the trend of community health and wellness continues to grow.Hospitals are focusing more on empowering people when it comes to community health care needs, said Craig Malm, director of community health improvement for Allina in the northwest metro.”Just because we’re an acute care organization that doesn’t mean we can’t work on improving healthy communities,” he said. “We’re trying to keep people out of hospitals, even though that’s our core business.”He calls wellness and preventative health care an effort to “move upstream” in the health care continuum.Malm’s department has identified childhood obesity as a top priority when it comes to community wellness ” partnering with school districts to work on areas of concern to kids, including obesity as well as mental health and wellness.”I think that’s fundamental to our mission as a non-profit healthcare organization,” said Malm.”Not just to provide acute care and sever the sick, but to do what we can to prevent illness as well.” Mandy Moran Froemming is at editor.anokaunion@ecm-inc.com Tags: Anoka High School , Anoka-Hennepin School District 11 , blood pressure , cholesterol levels , Coon Rapids High School , Mercy Hospital , Unity Hospital « Bond refinancing will save District 11 money Nucleus Clinic visits increase over last year » No comments yet. 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