Organizational Support and Program Structure
Do employer-sponsored disease management programs really make a difference in employees’ health and in health care expenditures?
The answer to this question is, “yes, but … .”
The success of these programs, in part, depends on your employees’ motivation to embrace changes that support a healthy lifestyle. ValueOptions understands this duality of responsibility and offers the resources you need to develop a workplace program that will motivate your employees to take charge of their health.
A comprehensive, employer-supported cardiovascular/behavioral health program can reduce the costs related to heart disease and improve employee productivity, health and quality of life. You are aware of the business rationale for including behavioral considerations in your program, as well as the complex relationship between emotion, behavior, coping strategies and cardiovascular health. Now, it’s time to apply this information to your unique workplace.
With ValueOptions’ employee assistance program and/or mental health and substance abuse services, you already have provided valuable support for a healthy heart program. As described in the “Helping Individuals” section, when your employees and family members reach out to us, our staff assess, screen, educate, refer to other resources and offer motivational counseling to help individuals identify risk factors for cardiovascular disease, manage heart disease and adopt healthy lifestyle habits.
This section will help you develop a workplace program that can stand alone or be integrated with programs you already have in place. We will review suggestions to:
Enlist senior leadership support
The success of any health improvement program requires strong support from senior leadership as well as corporate communications and human resources to facilitate broad communication efforts. With senior leadership support the initiative will assume a prominent role within the organization and create cooperation from all levels.
To begin to generate that support, try to find senior leaders who have a personal connection with this issue or who already have demonstrated interest in a comprehensive cardiovascular/behavioral health program at the workplace. See if any have been involved in such a program with a former employer. These executives can help you gain the support of other leaders.
To support your efforts to make the business case with executives, ValueOptions has prepared a presentation that you can customize for your organization. We’ve also drafted a sample employee memo that can be customized and used to demonstrate senior management commitment.
Establish a workgroup
Also critical to the success of the healthy heart initiative is the formation from the outset of an interdisciplinary workgroup. Its presence demonstrates organizational commitment and creates the structure for taking action.
To ensure that the program meets the needs of various constituencies within the company, you may consider including representatives from among the following groups:
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general employee population
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corporate communications
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food service
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facilities
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finance
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health and safety
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human resources/benefits
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employee assistance program
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management
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medical
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legal
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operations
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union(s)
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ValueOptions
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other vendor/partners such as your physical health partner and/or other specialty health partners
The function of this group is not only to create a program for your organization, but also to meet regularly in order to continuously evaluate the program’s effectiveness, to evaluate vendor feedback regarding emerging trends and to enhance program awareness within your workforce. We’ve included a sample presentation that you can modify for your kick-off meeting with this workgroup:
Design an integrated cardiovascular/behavioral health program
Your workgroup might want to consider these actions at this stage:
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assessing current programs and resources, available through internal departments and vendors
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assembling supportive programming:
- to help prevent heart disease through lifestyle behavior change
- to help those living with heart disease manage their condition
- to identify and manage behavioral conditions that impact heart health, such as depression, anxiety and chronic stress
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evaluating your program
Assessing current programs and resources
A natural starting point is for the workgroup to identify resources that already exist within the company, partners/vendors and community. In doing so, you could possibly save money, as well as identify opportunities to increase the effectiveness of efforts by synchronizing and integrating as much as possible.
Your organization may already have offered programs that improve cardiovascular health—tobacco cessation, weight management and exercise programs, for example. You may have health and wellness staff that run health fairs, conduct health risk screenings or facilitate wellness workshops. Your health plan(s) may provide communication materials to help increase awareness of what employees should do to take care of their heart.
We believe that with our expertise in helping people modify their behavior, ValueOptions can amplify the results of these programs. Please refer your workgroup to the “Helping Individuals” section for program information.
Assembling supportive programming
After you’ve identified your existing programs and resources, you can match them up against some key components to consider in a program that aims to change behavior:
To help prevent heart disease through lifestyle behavior change …
A comprehensive program must identify the modifiable behaviors that put the heart at risk, and then provide supportive services and communications to help motivate and sustain behavior changes. Consider the following suggestions:
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Implement a lifestyle/wellness health fair each spring using health care affiliates from your community that specialize in the needed content areas.
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Motivate employees by offering premium health rebate incentives.
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Offer lunch-and-learn workshops on mastery of goals.
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Use a health care coach to motivate employees.
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Teach employees to track and monitor personal success.
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Include a focus on wellness and lifestyle tips with each employee/company-sponsored newsletter.
To help those living with heart disease manage their condition …
Heart disease patients need a lot of care—both physical and emotional. As discussed in the “About” section, heart disease patients are at greater risk for depression and depression increases heart disease risk. Depression also compromises quality of life and makes a patient less likely to comply with a treatment plan. Some important considerations:
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Encourage employees to contact your nurse line, if applicable.
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Provide employees with access to home care and community-based health care services.
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Ensure your EAP and behavioral health care vendors interface with your disability management programs.
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Evaluate benefit co pays for sustaining care services.
To identify and manage behavioral conditions that impact heart health, such as depression, anxiety and chronic stress …
ValueOptions is providing these services to your organization, as described in the “Helping Individuals” section. To enhance our reach, employees must be made aware of the signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety and chronic stress, as well as coping strategies. This can be done through widespread communication programs and in conjunction with the delivery of health care services. Some other program considerations:
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Integrate data on health care plan expenditures to identify employees who could benefit from consultation for co-morbid conditions.
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Promote quarterly EAP health and wellness presentations on selected topics that address behaviors your organization has targeted.
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Ensure members are continuously aware of health promotion and opportunities to access care services that promote early identification and intervention.
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Create “stress-free zones” within the workplace.
The Achieve Solutions Web site is available to support these key program components, with its extensive library of articles, news items, quizzes and trainings.
Your ValueOptions account executive can support the design, implementation, promotion and follow-up for these activities. The “Low-cost Tips” section offers some additional program ideas.
Evaluating the program
In order to evaluate the success of an integrated cardiovascular/behavioral health program, you might plan to measure and report on some of the following behavioral health data in addition to your standard health promotion measures:
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retrospective review of claims costs to determine changes in health care costs and utilization
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number of admissions
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medication compliance
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depression screening score changes—pre- to post-intervention
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other psychosocially oriented screening tools
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quality of life questionnaires
Contact your ValueOptions account executive to further discuss measurements for your particular program.
Next steps
Please review the section, “Strategy—For Employers,” for guidelines to help you create a communication strategy to reach employees and family members, as well as managers and co-workers who can offer critical support to these individuals. You’ll also find communication tools and program timelines to help you plan your outreach. |
