Wellness

What are some of the common factors – all much welcomed signs of improved workplace wellness – that are common to America’s healthiest companies? A marked reduction in smoking, plus measurable reductions in glucose and blood pressure levels emerge as the most consistent hallmarks of a truly healthy workplace.

Commentary: Blogger Jeff Hyman says creating this culture is challenging but he has suggestions you can bring to your clients, or your own work environment.

Employer action on the patient safety issue could include crafting health benefit plans that reward safety and penalize non-compliance, urging hospital boards to make safety a priority and distributing patient safety literature.

A lesser known fact about outcome-based wellness programs can help advisers bring their clients’ programs into HIPAA compliance.

Two plan sponsors, the Government Employees Health Association and Orlando Health, share their approaches to weight loss and engaging employees in sustained behavior change.

A new app has hit the streets of New York, looking to maximize the gym reimbursements that are available but underutilized on many insurance plans.

Though mobile health apps have the potential for greater patient engagement, researchers found only two major methods of engagement in their sample population of apps.

There’s a glimmer of good news for employer-sponsored healthcare programs. Near-site and on-site clinics offering primary care, often referred to as “employee health centers,” are bringing overall plan-cost reductions along with measurable member-health improvements

Commentary: EBA blogger Trisha Zulic says the first step in ensuring wellness plans are effective is to deliver information the way adults actually seek it these days.

With unmanaged employee absences costing companies up to 10% of payroll, according to some estimates, employers should pay close attention to the reasons behind absenteeism and whether they are linked to the organization’s culture of health, or lack thereof.

Wearable fitness devices may be gaining ground but at least one benefits professional expresses doubts about their viability in workplace wellness programs.

When the public exchanges were first envisioned, some industry analysts thought most employers eventually would head for the exits on financing health benefits and simply steer their employees into the nascent online marketplace. That hasn’t happened, of course, and it’s far too early in the HIX rollout to expect any meaningful change to occur.

It’s no surprise Americans are tired. That’s why benefit advisers working with employers to build a wellness program should not ignore sleep solutions.

Many wellness models are based on mythology. Myths like all plans should have disease management, or everyone needs to work on heart disease prevention. How to get past the noise and on to effective interventions? Look closely at your own group – its people, its illnesses, and its work environment.

Everyone who has pursued a traditional employee weight loss program knows that results can be unpredictable. Usually, enough employees succeed in losing weight to give the program value. The problem is they often gain it back. While programs are going in the right direction, clearly there is room for improvement.

Incentives or disincentives? Carrot or stick? The answer: it depends…

Health and wellness programs are virtually meaningless if a workplace culture is bad, according to Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University’s graduate school of business. Speaking during the annual Great Place to Work conference in New Orleans, Pfeffer said that unhealthy workplaces can cause up to 125,000 employee deaths each year and add up to $130 billion in excess annual company costs.

Enlivening your staff and company’s workplace culture can be as simple and sustainable as committing random acts of kindness.

In analyzing ways to contain ever-escalating health care costs, many employers are seeing tangible returns from wellness programs – but continuing to place the blame on employees and their bad health habits for much of those rising costs.

Tobacco, food choices and portion size, physical inactivity and unmanaged stress are the four major lifestyle choices that account for the majority of chronic disease in the U.S., said Dr. Michael Roizen, chief wellness officer and chair of the Wellness Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, this week at the Institute for Health and Productivity Management annual conference