Clements Health Consulting _ Questions and Answers

Clements Health Consulting, LLC is a consulting service providing leadership in comprehensive workplace health promotion and productivity management within the trucking industry.

Our services provide industry leaders and company decision makers with resources needed to understand, develop and implement comprehensive workplace health promotion and productivity management programs.
We provide health and lifestyle education. We improve access to health promoting resources professional truck drivers and employees want and need.
We meet with drivers and employees to provide education and support needed to improve desired change. Our education based on established standards of medical care.
We create programming that balances employee health promotion wants and needs with management’s fiscal accountability for return on investment.
Links: http://www.occupationalhazards.com/Issue/Article/47269/
More_Companies_Are_Turning_to_Wellness.aspx
http://www.welcoa.org

Well planned and implemented health promotion programs may:

Lower health care costs.
Increase productivity, increase business profits by decreasing sick days
Reduce injuries
Reduce absenteeism
Reduce long-term disability
Increase recruitment and decrease job turnover
Decrease disability frequency and costs
Decrease internal conflict
Increase image and public relations in community
Increase morale - better employee satisfaction and workplace culture
Increase team building

In 1990, the national per capita average health care cost was $1,066 for each American--by 2001, it had increased to $5,500.
In 2003 an employer providing health insurance for employee only coverage paid on average $3,391 while cost for family coverage was $9,075. (1)
According to an integrated Benefits Institute study in 2002, the overall burden for direct payments for health benefits and indirect payments attributable to lost productivity averaged $16,691. (2)

According to the Surgeon General, what we eat, the kind of physical activity we maintain, and our lifestyle choices account for 70%* of our health status. These risks translate into costs of approximately:

$960 for each employee that smokes
$401 for excess weight, $370 for high cholesterol
$343 for high blood pressure
$130 for lack of exercise per employee on an annual basis.

Health and wellness have reached epidemic levels for all of us…..

Time taken off work for cardiovascular disease and strokes costs employers
$142.5 billion in lost productivity.
Obesity costs $56 billion in lost productivity.
Diabetes costs $54 billion in lost productivity.

The per capita annual cost of health care for people with diabetes rose from $10,071 in 1997 to $13,243 in 2002, an increase of more than 30 percent. In contrast, health care costs for people without diabetes amounted to $2,560 in 2002.

Links:
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/worklife/steps/pdfs/BackgroundPaperGoetzelJan2005.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/publications/PowerOfPrevention

1. Gabel, Jon, Health Benefits 2003: Premiums, reach thirteen-year high as employers adopt new forms of cost sharing.” Health Affairs. Vol;. 22, n 5 (September/October, 2003): 117-126
2. Parry T. (2004) IBI Study of Absence, Lost Productivity, and Health, IBI Programs. Integrated Benefits Institute. Http://ibiweb,org/

Within the workplace innovative employers providing their employees with a variety of worksite health based promotion and disease prevention have shown to improve health, increase productivity and yield a significant return on investment for the employer.

A Stanford University review of health promotion and disease management programs found a significant return on investment for these programs, with benefit-to-cost ratios, ranging from $1.49 to $4.91 (median of $3.14) in benefits for every dollar spent on the program. Several major companies with award-winning cost-saving health promotion disease prevention programs are in:

Motorola's wellness program, which saved the company $3.93 for every $1 invested.
Northeast Utilities Well Aware Program, which in its first 24 months reduced lifestyle and behavioral claims by $1,400,000.
Caterpillar's Healthy Balance program, which is projected to result in long term savings of $700 million by 2015.
Johnson & Johnson's Health and Wellness Program, which has produced average annual health care savings of $224.66 per employee.

By changing the way they live, individual Americans could change their personal health status and the health landscape of the Nation dramatically. Health care spending is growing faster than the gross domestic product (GDP) and is projected to account for 17.7 percent of the GDP by 2012, up from 14.1 percent in 2001. (3)

A small number of chronic disorders-such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases-account for the majority of deaths each year, and the medical care costs of people with chronic diseases account for more than 75 percent of the nation's medical care costs. (4)

Links:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/prevention/ http://occupationalhazards.com/Issue/Article/55330/The_Road_to_Wellness.aspx

3. Health Project website:.healthproject.stanford.edu/koop. Information presented in the report on notable employee wellness programs was obtained primarily from this website
4. http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/

Smoking
Poor eating and nutrition
Physical inactivity
Stress

Worksite health promotion programs range from bulletin board, pamphlet and newsletter to fitness programming, and creating access to health risk reduction information and personal lifestyle change coaching. Programs frequently include a health risk assessment to evaluate each employee’s modifiable risk factors of disease. Interventions target those that are at increased risk through personal communications and individual follow up.

Comprehensive health promotion programs may include access to health risk reduction and job safety, fitness and exercise activities, reduction in co-payments or premiums for employees who adhere to recommended medical screening guidelines.

Yes. Recently, the World Health Organization identified key elements for good health-dietitians have emphasized for years: people must balance their caloric intake with energy expenditure in order to maintain healthy weight. In common terms, people need to eat an appropriate amount of healthy food, and they must expend enough calories to use what they eat. This means some type of cardiovascular exercise should be done on a routine basis.

Healthy eating and physical activity are important contributors to the optimal health of employees. Nutrition education in the workplace enhances productivity, staff morale, corporate profits and general well being.

People who:

are overweight or have difficulty maintaining their weight
want to develop a lifestyle that will PREVENT development of chronic diseases
want to eat right to look and feel their best
want straight answers based on nutrition research
need low-fat, low-cost nutritious meal plans
want to eat to enhance physical performance and endurance
have cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or osteoporosis that requires nutrition therapy
seek answers to environmental nutrition issues

Guidance and direction on driver and employee nutrition, health and worksite health promotion programming
Nutrition education or counseling based on scientific facts.
Health promotion and nutrition education to sustain health and prevent onset and advancement of preventable high cost health risks.
Advocating to provide health and nutrition education at every level within an organization – top management, program development and implementation
Expertise to identify employee health risks
Expertise to identify, evaluates and coordinates health education to reduce health risks we can change
Advising decision makers on established medical standards and nutrition guidelines
Direct accountability for ongoing evaluation of program effectiveness, appropriateness and effectiveness.

Improvement in nutrition and physical activity are associated with significant improvements in:

Healthy eating
High blood cholesterol and heart disease
Diabetes
High blood pressure
Weight Management
Overweight/Obesity

Expertise in planning, developing and implementing a wellness program for employees based on best practices for worksite health promotion and productivity management.
Access to Workplace Health Promotion and Productivity Management experts who lead business and industry
Expert in planning and implementing programming appropriate to your organizations needs including:
- senior management support
- evaluating needs
- developing and implementing a program model,
- setting up a program and administrative infrastructure

Evidence continues to grow that well-designed and well-resourced health promotion and disease prevention programs provide multi-faceted payback on investment. Return on investment is achieved through improved worker health, reduced benefit expense and enhanced productivity. Following are referenced to peer reviewed evaluations that found a wide range from $1.49 to $13 for return on investment.

A review of the best companies to work for in the United Stats focus on respecting and valuing the employee as a companies most valued asset and resource. While a return on investment wise is difficult to measure it is undoubtedly one of the most important management decisions that impacts a companies bottom line, attracts and retains the best candidates for each job within a company and continues to support practices that keeps personnel motivated, healthy and loyal to it’s employer.

Kathryn Clements is a writer and a registered and Licensed Dietitian
and Certified Worksite Wellness Program Director based in Cannon Falls, MN.
For more information: Phone - 507-263-3020
Email: Kathryn Clements - Clements Health Consulting