Employee wellness programs are company initiatives that are designed to improve the health of their employees. These programs differ widely across the board, but they aim to reduce health-related issues (e.g. sick days) and increase employee productivity. These initiatives also prevent employees from developing chronic illnesses or help ailing employees manage their health. It is estimated that Eighty-one per cent of large employers (with more than 200 employees) and 49 per cent of small employers offer some form of wellness promotion programs. Companies often consult with external wellness program vendors to deliver these initiatives.
Workplace health and wellness promotion incentives and programs often include:
- Health risk assessments via online risk calculators
- Weight loss coaching
- Biometric screenings (health screenings that measure blood pressure, glucose levels, cholesterol levels, weight, height, body mass index)
- Fitness classes or gym membership reimbursements
- Tobacco cessation programs and coaching
- Substance misuse prevention program
- Vaccines including Flu shots
- Onsite health clinics
- Chronic disease management and prevention
- Health and lifestyle coaching
These programs seem like win-wins on the surface, but crafting a workplace health and wellness program means defining health and wellness. More and more companies are investing in initiatives to improve their employees’ health, but companies ultimately discover the same thing. Their employee wellness programs are not efficient.
If we were to analyse the Wellness programs, they often address symptoms, not root causes. The majority of health care costs are created by those who already have chronic conditions, like metabolic syndrome. About one-tenth of company employees account for almost 80% of the health care costs. Companies goal is to make sure that the number of people diagnosed is keeping the condition in control and those at-risk can prevent developing these conditions. Without long-term lifestyle adjustments, these employee wellness programs fail. Without addressing the cause of these conditions or identifying them early enough to stop them, wellness programs miss the opportunity to make long-term employee health changes. Exiting technologies that exist for chronic disease identification are not efficient to identify these conditions early.
Our product Intelligent Health Risk Assessment (IHRA) addresses this gap. IHRA is a first-of-its-kind prognostic screening solution for Type 2 Diabetes, Hypertension, and Dyslipidemia using a non-invasive no-radiation method. IHRA shows the risk of developing these conditions on a scale of 0-10, 10 being the highest. Wellness programs can use our solution IHRA to identify people at risk of developing these conditions early-on and enrol them on the prevention programs. This helps companies reduce their long-term costs by reducing the number of people diagnosed with one or more chronic conditions. Contact us today to learn more!