New lexicon for wellness needed: IHPM

With more employers moving to consumer-driven health care plans and shifting more responsibility for health care and health risks on to workers, are wellness programs still relevant? Health leaders from IBM and Johnson & Johnson addressed that very question during the Institute for Health & Productivity Management’s annual global conference held in Orlando.

“We’ve rode the coat tails of health care costs and I think in some ways we’ve shot ourselves in the foot a little bit,” said Stewart Sill, manager, global health & vitality with IBM Integrated Health Services. “Because now, as employers look to further shift risks to employees … if you shift the risk, your CFO now says ‘why do we need wellness as a risk management strategy?’ You’ve lost the business case. So broadening that business case is important to make sure we keep moving forward.”

IHPM president and CEO Sean Sullivan made the case for introducing a new global lexicon for wellness, noting that employers and others in the wellness industry should not underestimate the value of language. The paradigm of diet, exercise and sleep, for example, should be shifted to nutrition, movement and recovery.

“Wellness is much more than a clinical view of health risks,” he said.

Defining measures of performance is a critical shift for employers, said Fikry Isaac, MD, vice president of global health services with Johnson & Johnson. “We’re trying to make the connection that the value of health be included as part of those measurements and assessments of performance,” he said. “We’re doing a lot of work looking at our labor market … one of our desires is to see is there any correlation between a healthy worksite and [whether] people are moving up [in the company] and are happier at work.”

Since 1995, Johnson & Johnson has offered health insurance premium discounts to its U.S. employees who complete a health risk assessment and who, if they are found to have one of seven risk factors, reach out to a health coach. The model has moved U.S. participation in the HRA from 25-30% in the late 1980s to about 80-85% today. But the model doesn’t apply to global operations, cautioned Isaac.

“In other parts of the world, we’re trying raffles with iPads and gadgets or donating money to a charitable cause,” he said. “Intrinsic motivation is the way to go. Trying to reach down to people and get to why they want to be healthy, [then] you may be able to sustain [behavior change] for the longest period of time.”

Johnson & Johnson’s wellness program, branded Energy for Performance and Life, addresses four pillars – spiritual, mental, physical and nutritional -- through employee training programs, some as long as two days, held onsite. “People dig deeper and start to address the question ‘what is your purpose in life?’ and linking that to ‘here is how you look right now, do you want to do something about it?’” said Isaac.