Response: Employee Wellness Programs

6-1 Discussion Response: Employee Wellness Programs

Additional Information:

Textbook: Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness, Building Cultures of Health and Wellness, Chapters 8 and 11

PDF: The Value of Health and the Power of Prevention

Lecture 6.1: The Business Case for a Population Health Approach:

http://snhu-media.snhu.edu/files/course_repository/undergraduate/ihp/ihp410/mod_six_overview.pdf

Initial Post:

The relationship between health and productivity is well documented. Many employers today have employee wellness programs to assist workers with getting and staying healthy.

· Give a brief overview of and evaluate your employer’s employee wellness program.

· What are its components?

· Does it take a population health approach?

· What are its strengths?

· How could it be improved?

If you are not currently employed or if your employer does not have an employee wellness program, ask a friend or relative who works for an employer that does have such a program to share details with you.

Responding to your classmates:

When responding to your classmates, evaluate the wellness programs that were outlined and make your own suggestions for improvement.

Classmate #1:

Amber Larue posted Feb 7, 2021 4:01 PM

I work for Pruitt Health Home Health. We have an employee wellness program. The program is an incentive-based program that gives us employees multiple choices. They provide us with personal well-being, healthy lifestyles and help control medical illnesses. Enrollment for this program is made annually and, if you meet your personal targets, they give us a discount on our insurance premium for the following year. Every year, the registration starts in January and we have health screenings to be done by July. Medical evaluation requires assessing height, weight, blood pressure and then checking cholesterol and glucose levels every two years. We have the ability to receive the same details from our providers as long as it has been completed within the time constraints and the documentation is completed to complete the switch.

When everyone registered has submitted their results, they help each employee build their personal lifestyle goals. These goals must be reached by the end of October. They also provide us with access to their Wellness website to help us reach our goals. The website provides helpful hints to accomplish specific goals. The website also demonstrates our targets on the homepage of two fitness events, including a wellness assessment, which we must complete. We have the opportunity to sign up for other tasks, such as weight loss and weight maintenance. They provide challenges for wellness, including attaching a fitness tracker to our accounts. With fitness trackers, workers are often inspired to meet their targets and do much more for their wellbeing. We also get rewards when we meet certain goals/tasks efficiently. They have given employees big screen tv's, gas cards, gift cards, to a trip to disney world. My company is very helpful and wants us all to be healthy. They want us to make positive choices in our lives. I love my work family.

Classmate #2:

Wendy Rex posted Feb 9, 2021 9:27 AM

Unfortunately my employer does not have a wellness program set up for us, I think we would all benefit if they did but it is what it is. My husbands employer however does have a wellness program set up for them. They take one full work day which for them is from 6a-4p, and they do a wellness workshop, a health fair and a health screening all in 10 hours. They have PAs who come in to give the health assessments and go over their smoking habits and what it is that they could work on or do to have better health. I think this part could be better improved if the PAs could give a prescription to help if there are issues that they need to have one. The health fair has different people who come in with products that could better help with their fitness and nutrition. Nutritionist who help them to get a better out look on their eating habits and what they could do differently. It is a whole day filled with people to help them, give them pointers, and it helps to keep their premiums lower than they would be if they did not do this.