As social media continues to evolve, one reality is coming into focus: it is revolutionizing the way we communicate. The new tools and technologies represent opportunities for collaboration, knowledge sharing and engagement that just cannot be ignored. In fact, there is increasing evidence that many savvy businesses are using social networking to transform their customer service experience and augment human resources functions. Wellness companies are also catching on to this trend.
One study found that 40 percent of online consumers use social media to seek out health information. Another, by Pew Research Center, noted how social networks help those with chronic conditions, providing not only information but also a social outlet where there’s no worry of being judged or criticized. This rise in popularity isn’t surprising when you consider the trends in social media overall, and the quest to improve health engagement.
From a corporate wellness standpoint, social networks provide companies with a new channel for spurring and cementing positive change, by widening the ripple of positive change that begins with a few committed individuals. Participating alongside colleagues also provides employees with motivation, peer support and accountability, all of which are crucial to driving long-term engagement.
Meanwhile, employers must evaluate how they can harness the power of these tools to improve the health of their employees and their bottom line. Viverae has a solution for both: VLife. Implemented exclusively for Viverae clients and their employees, VLife is an online community leveraging the power of connectivity to establish long-term engagement and successful outcomes in employee wellness programs.
VLife is comprised of various communication channels designed to drive and retain participation—a dynamic wellness network where Viverae Health Professionals, client members, and fellow supporters pool their experiences and knowledge to achieve better outcomes.
Within VLife, employees are given access to social media tools that enable them to create their own groups based on any interest (lunch-time walking group, Zumba club, healthy recipe exchange club, etc.). In addition, employees can participate in forums and discussions, find local events to participate in, and share motivational messages with one another.
In this way, VLife connects employees to peers with similar concerns who can speak from experience about what works for them. By uniting employees and encouraging them to make healthy commitments together, employers can harness this network effect to spread healthy behaviors at the workplace and increase the likelihood that their employees will succeed.
To learn more about VLife, go to www.Viverae.com and click on the VLife section on the homepage.
As a full-service health management company, Viverae provides the tools necessary for program success and an overall return on investment (ROI). We have taken a step-by-step look at wellness programs by assessing the shape of the program and discussing ways to take it to the next level.
Successful total population health management involves health promotion, risk identification, risk stratification, lifestyle programs, clinical programs, and access to care. The Viverae Health Management System (VHMS) is our proprietary technology platform that provides each of these key components for an effective wellness program. As an employer, VHMS offers you metrics on-demand, quick stats, participation and incentive reports at the click of a button. In addition, Viverae offers an industry leading approach to service delivery, which keeps your program on track and provides the most efficient way to respond to your needs.
Reports show that health management programs with the highest ROI include:
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Management commitment
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Meaningful employee incentives
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Effective screening and reporting
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Easy access to wellness resources
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Effective employee engagement
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On-going program evaluation
Many health management programs have difficulty measuring ROI. Often times, program components are outsourced making it hard to obtain aggregate data and show improvement in employee health. All of Viverae’s wellness program components are managed in-house providing timely and accurate data, reporting integrity and proof of reduction in overall employee health risk. With Viverae, significant ROI can be seen within two to four years of program engagement.
In addition to the financial benefits, Viverae program participants have shown a 14.3 percent average risk factor reduction over a two year time period, which is significantly higher than the national average. Research shows that as employees lower their health risk, companies see a reduction in absenteeism, increased productivity, improved job satisfaction, and greater retention rates. Viverae’s solution leads to a healthier workforce and a stronger balance sheet.
Healthcare costs continue to increase at a rapid pace causing some companies to look at creative and impactful alternatives to their current wellness program. In addition to skyrocketing health care costs, employee absenteeism and the shortage of primary care physicians, onsite clinics within companies are increasing.
Human resource administrators acknowledge providing in-house care keeps employees healthy, happy and productive. Executives see the benefit to the bottom line through decreased medical bills for outside doctors and emergency rooms as well as a reduction in employee absenteeism and disability claims.
Viverae’s health care philosophy is to offer clients a resource, through an onsite clinic, where prevention and early detection will help identify health risks of employees before they turn into significant medical claims. About 25 percent of health care costs come from preventable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Although these “lifestyle” diseases can be treated with early detection, many employees do not have a primary care physician to test for these diseases and recommend treatment options.
Viverae’s onsite clinics are managed by Viverae’s Medical Administration Team and can be staffed with a medical assistant, nurse, nurse practitioner, physician assistant and/or a physician with a specialization in internal medicine, family practice or emergency medicine. In addition, the clinic can triage and refer workers’ compensation cases for appropriate medical treatment. The clinics include the appropriate equipment and supplies based on company needs.
Viverae also provides clinic-specific usage and encounter reports to complement existing health management program participation reports to clients to show return on investment. Employers with high employee turnover might not see the advantage of an onsite clinic. However, employers of companies with more than 500 employees are seeing the benefits. Onsite clinics do not replace a company wellness program. Offering a wellness program along with an onsite clinic does increase employee engagement and utilization of the programs offered.
Now more than ever, onsite clinics make financial sense for companies to consider as an enhanced health benefit to employees and their dependents. Viverae can customize a program to meet your companies’ specific health care needs and goals.
One of the greatest financial strains for companies and their employees is chronic conditions. For individuals, the number one reason people file for bankruptcy is debt due to medical expenses. For companies, 21 percent of the American workforce is diagnosed with a chronic condition that accounts for 62 percent of all medical costs.
Typically, disease management programs are driven solely by claims data and delivered to the member by the insurance company or claims administrator. However, Viverae offers a personalized approach that incorporates Biometric Screenings and health assessment data into one program. Viverae’s Health Management System (VHMS) gives members’ access to tools and information that aid in proactively managing chronic conditions and allowing them to be an active participant in their own health.
Viverae’s Chronic Condition Management (CCM) program targets the top five chronic conditions that typically have the highest impact on an organization’s health-related costs. Those conditions include but are not limited to:
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Asthma
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Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
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Congestive Heart Failure
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Coronary Artery Disease
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Diabetes (types I and II)
Viverae identifies participants appropriate for the Chronic Condition Management (CCM) program through several data-analytic tools, including Member Health Assessments (MHAs), supplemental questionnaires, Biometric Screening results and medical and pharmaceutical claims information. Once identified, members have access to Viverae team clinicians, nurses, dietitians and other medical professionals, who coach employees to help them self-manage chronic conditions.
When working with individual members, the Viverae team goal is:
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Support treatment adherence
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Support member daily self management
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Encourage and support health behavior choices
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Reduce disease-related complications
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Educate members on disease condition(s) to enhance self management
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Identify barriers that impact a member’s ability to improve health outcomes
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Track outcomes, identify opportunities to improve the health management program
It’s important to note Viverae is committed to the highest level of confidentiality to protect participants’ health information. The CCM program provides consistent reporting and feedback to clients, as well as collaboration with a member’s physician or health care provider. Viverae’s case management includes an ongoing evaluation of participants’ goals and outcomes to ensure improvement of the overall health population.
If the next step in your wellness program is to advance toward chronic condition management, let Viverae help you accomplish your goal. As your wellness provider, Viverae is already conducting an MHA, Biometric Screening and even medical and prescription claims analytics. This allows Viverae to easily identify and engage more of your employees than a traditional disease management program. Plus, Viverae will have the ability to incentivize employees to participate. In fact, Viverae can link the CCM program participation to year round engagement and keep the member involved in all aspects of the wellness program.
Stratifying Health Risk Every Day or SHRED is the best tool for engaging employees and creating change in a wellness program. Now that SHRED is in place, how do you get your employees excited about change and keep them on the continuum of a healthy lifestyle?
Viverae allows you to choose the best program based on your needs. Most importantly, our programs enable us to grow with you through a multi-year strategy. We call this strategy our “E” Products – Enroll, Engage, Excel and Exceed.
Each of these programs includes access to MyViverae website, mobile app, account management, data, reporting and communications. The difference between each program is the criteria required for a member to earn incentives.
ENROLL is a 100 point program that administers the My Health Assessment (MHA) and biometric screenings. Once members have completed both of these tasks, they receive a reward for enrollment and risk factor awareness is created to begin touch points with members.
ENGAGE is a 200 point program that adds preventive care and program activities to the MHA and biometric screenings. Engage creates risk factor reduction and engages behavior change in members.
EXCEL is a 300 point program designed to accelerate behavior change and focus on those members with greater risk factors. Members are held accountable for their health through a Health Score Bonus. Accelerating behavior in this population will begin to show financial results.
EXCEED is a 500 point program encompassing all of the advantages in the previous programs. However, members are held accountable for their health outcomes through meeting or improving health metrics. High-impact results are met with positive financial return in this advanced program.
To help customize your program even further, Viverae offers Enhancers to any of the programs listed above. Enhancers are used to increase the number of times we reach a member to continue encouraging engagement and behavior change. Enhancers may include health coaching and disease management, advanced biometric screening, claims analytics, nicotine replacement therapy, advanced wireless accelerometer technology to track daily activities, onsite services and communications design and marketing. Let Viverae help you create the best strategy for a successful wellness program.
Often times, companies will roll out an exuberant wellness campaign announcing their new program with a health fair for employees, biometric screenings and incentives for completing a health assessment. Congratulations! You have collected valuable data and your employees are all “on board” – now what?
Viverae’s research over the past ten years has shown that the more touch points you have with a member, the more likely they are to engage in behavior change and the greater improvement in their risk profile (Baylor Study). To increase those touch points with members, a company must offer timely access to key information for all users. Most wellness programs evaluate risk only one time per year through biometric screenings and health assessments. However, risk profiles change every day. How can you measure risk for new hires and changes in your population throughout the year if you are only assessing that changing population one time a year? A member not “at risk” today could be tomorrow because they are due for a preventive exam, find out they are pregnant or develop high blood pressure.
Stratifying Health Risk Every Day (SHRED) allows us to constantly capture new data, prioritize that data based on risk levels and provide action items for members. These action items create the touch points a successful wellness program needs to engage members throughout the year and help reduce risk. Reducing risk factors in the member population leads to decreased health care costs year over year. In addition to providing wellness ROI through claims analysis and reducing risk factors, other indicators of a successful program include decreased absenteeism, increased productivity and improved employee morale.
Creating change and engaging employees can be exciting for them and for you if you have the right tools and information provided through SHRED.
Once you have begun the process of promoting your wellness program, the next step is to determine where your employee population is right now. Risk identification through a Member Health Assessment and Biometric Screenings will lead your company toward the ultimate goal of risk reduction. In addition, studies have shown that once people are aware of their health risks, this knowledge facilitates a process toward healthy lifestyle changes.
Under the Viverae model, all data is collected and housed together so that we can offer our client companies Metrics On Demand – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The proprietary reports include:
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Population reports on biometric data, health scores, risk factors, preventive services, conditions and participation
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Data can be filtered by demographic information such as gender, location and age allowing for follow up intervention for those at risk
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Data can be compared to prior years allowing you to track and analyze your health population over time and measure ongoing risks
For employees, VHMS (Viverae Health Management System) is an exclusive technology platform that provides timely access to key information for all users. Members see personalized information, gathered from the Member Health Assessment and Biometric Screenings data, which provides health information and tools specific to their needs and program plans that are suggested to optimize their healthy lifestyle changes. In addition, VHMS allows clinicians to see applicable data for outreach and disease management purposes.
Timely access to data and programs along with the personal touch offered by member support, health promotion specialists and clinicians will help move your wellness program along the path toward risk reduction and improving workforce engagement in a healthy lifestyle.
Last week, we looked at the shape of corporate wellness programs as compared to fruit. Let’s now look at how your program can be elevated. Corporate wellness programs often start out as the “Banana” - A company that invests in a wellness program with employees who benefit from it, but never really takes it to the next level. In order for a program to become the “fruit salad” of success, companies must commit to improving the total health population. These companies will ultimately improve employee health and reduce health care costs. Total population health management involves health promotion, risk stratification, lifestyle programs, clinical programs and access to care.
Health promotion is an essential component of a successful program at any stage. Employees need to be encouraged to engage in their well-being from the beginning. The Viverae service center can assist by answering program concerns, helping with technology and incentive questions. In addition, a member can be connected to a health promotion specialist for specific lifestyle, nutrition, exercise and weight loss questions. The Viverae team also suggests having a licensed clinician or registered nurse available at all times to provide support for chronic conditions.
Health promotion is not only for the beginning of a program, but is a continual patient process. Unfortunately, we often see programs begin strong with biometric screenings; health assessments and incentives, but fade out after the initial kick-off. Health promotion creates a sense of trust and unified support and will help your program be effective. Connecting with the right person at the right time is essential to promoting a healthy culture.
Engaging your employees with health promotion is just one way to have a more robust program. Having a wellness partner who can manage the full-spectrum health promotion will have a greater impact on your employees and ultimately your bottom line.
Corporate wellness programs in businesses of all sizes are a win-win for everyone. They create both lower health insurance premiums for the company, and healthier, more productive employees. The metaphor “fruits of labor” is aptly applied in this scenario. A company that invests in a wellness program and the employees who benefit from it will both enjoy the rewards of a job well done. But not all wellness programs are created equally. They’re built with the needs and desires of their audiences in mind. They provide the triggers that reinforce the behaviors you seek to drive. If properly designed, they offer opportunities to enhance the program and your outcomes. Using the metaphor “fruits of labor,” what type of fruit would your company represent?
The Wellness Fruits of Labor
Banana: The banana is slender and proportionate from top to bottom. If your health and wellness program is a banana, then you have evenly sliced into a few initiatives by introducing a wellness kickoff plan to employees, providing biometric screenings, requesting employees to log-in and take their health risk assessment. The banana needs to build strength and consistency over time. You have a balanced wellness plan for employees that foster an overall health enhancing workplace.
Pear: The pear is small at the top and large at the bottom. The pear workplace is one that lacks support from company leaders. Employees are actively engaged in their own wellness, yet managers and supervisors are not participating in wellness programs. The pear is noticeably out of proportion. Leaders in health management should encourage and demonstrate wellness as a valuable part of work life.
Apple: The apple carries most weight up top and is smaller on the bottom. The executives complete biometric screenings and online health assessments and participate in challenges, but the majority of employees fail to see the value in corporate wellness. Communication and enablement is crucial for garnering employee support.
Orange: The orange is symmetrical and full in the middle. Although this may seem like the perfect balance, the orange tends to plateau. This is characteristic of a corporate wellness program that has been in place for a few years and has proven successful. Change is now the key to maintaining success.
While all of these shapes have positive and negative aspects, no fruit is perfect alone. To successfully implement a corporate culture of wellness, it is best to blend all fruits together to see the “fruits” of your labor. This includes the executive and human resource team and the right resources, support and wellness tools that Viverae provides.
Next, we will explore the health management solutions and tools that can improve and change the shape of your corporate wellness program.
Posted by
VLife Team on Fri, Dec 30, 2011 @ 04:27 PM
Goodbye Christmas season, hello New Year’s Eve! It’s a holiday that brings massive quantities of mini-appetizers, cheap champagne hangovers, and huge self-expectations also known as “New Year’s resolutions.” Big sigh…
We intend to start the year off with a bang – drop some weight, get fit, and become completely satisfied with our reflection in the mirror. Then Valentine’s Day rolls around, we indulge in a few pints of ice cream, and all hope is lost.
But why does that drive and inspiration always seem to dwindle year after year? It’s generally a lack of planning, motivation, and specific goals according to television host Dr. Oz. And as with any lifestyle change, the secret to success is starting small.
If you’ve declared 2012 the year to get fit and shed extra weight, begin by adopting some of these healthy behaviors to help get you in the groove.
LOSING WEIGHT
Kristi Hatfield, MS, RD, LD at Viverae recommends:
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Plan out a list of what you are willing to change (late night snacks, alcohol, extra meals) in exchange for a thinner and healthier body. You only need to commit to this change once in your lifetime to obtain lasting results.
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Strive for a balanced diet to help you lose weight and be healthier. Combine a variety of lean protein, healthy fat, and complex carbohydrates with each meal. Look for lots of color on your plate, this means that you are eating a variety of vitamins and minerals.
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Eating small quantities more frequently throughout the day will also help you lose weight by avoiding hunger and the overeating that accompanies it. A good rule of thumb is to eat meals about the size of your fist (approximately the size of your stomach) five or six times a day. Some studies have even shown that this practice can help boost your metabolism to burn more calories throughout the day.
GETTING FIT
Bradley Jimerson, NSCA-CPT at Viverae recommends:
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Pinpoint the reason why you don’t exercise on a consistent basis. Is there not enough time? Do you feel uncomfortable at the gym? Do you dislike the exercises you have tried? After isolating the root reason, alter your approach.
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Moving your body daily for a minimum of thirty minutes is sufficient for keeping your metabolism running efficiently. Daily movement should never be stressful but instead something you look forward to.
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Start by taking walks outside (if weather permits) fifteen minutes out and fifteen minutes back every day. That’s it! Take your dog on a walk every night, do wall squats or lunges across a room, and have a stretching session before going to bed.
Remember that achieving your weight loss and fitness goals will happen gradually when you commit to minor lifestyle changes. Cheers to a healthier you in 2012!
