Incentives - are they the solution or the distraction in EHM?

For many years, we have been asked to demonstrate the ROI of health management programs. Specifically, identify the financial investment in employee health management programs and show the savings reaped from the investment. Recently financial incentives have been at the top of discussions because of their "power" in motivating individuals to participate in programs. Furthering this dialogue is health reform, allowing employers to increase the percent of health benefits that can be offered as incentives from 20% to 30%, and possibly 50% in the future.  Based on the state of the market and our interest in responding to the ROI request, many are asking the question "What is the best incentive to offer to engage participants and afford the best outcome in health programs?"

I would challenge those responding to that question and ask why we are trying to answer this question? In all of my experience over the years, no one program design has fit more than one company, because each company has it's own set of unique program goals, culture, leadership support, resources and policies. So, what would make us think we could identify one incentive amount, type, or design as the "gold standard." 

I think we should be asking different questions entirely: What barriers exist that are preventing people from prioritizing their health? How is the health of an employee woven into an organization's policies, performance reviews, manager evaluations, leadership commitment? What is the organization's opportunity to achieve greater performance, retention, growth, culture, etc.?  Identifying success measures and assigning value to these as a "return" is a worthy conversation. 

Finally, let's not focus all of our attention on an incentive and assume this component is the success or failure of the program. An incentive is only the "coupon" that gets you to walk in the store, let's try to achieve loyal customers and integrate programs so well that prioritizing health is easy, rewarding and an expectation within the organization's culture.

HERO - its strengths & vision to drive EHM

Yesterday I was honored to sit around the table with many thought leaders in the area of employee health management at the annual HERO Think Tank meeting. I am always impressed at the level of commitment and engagement these meetings include, as well as the "brain power" around the table. Credit should be given to the founders of HERO (Bill Witmer and Mark Dundon), as well as Jerry Noyce and his staff for continuing to evolve HERO as an organization and continue its mission. Today it was determined that HERO's research focus is to identify EHM best practices for the industry and it's members and continue to flesh these out to better define gold-standard EHM programming.

As I process our meeting, I have a few observations....

- member organizations are only as good as it's members and their ability to identify their organization's goals, define a strategy to achieve these goals, and take action on this strategy.
- effective leaders bring out the passion in people and their interests, and utilize this energy to shape and springboard the organization's mission.
- organizations should recognize their past successes, but focus on their future success and defining it well. Defining the questions they are trying to answer, determining whether the group has the means to adequately address them, and if the right people are involved to make it happen.

As I sat through research priority discussions today, I felt excited to be a part of a group that has not only identified priorities for our field, but also challenged itself to conduct research with scientific rigor, investigate areas that practitioners are most interested in, and commit to establishing partnerships with other organizations to reach their goals. In addition, it has been an outstanding experience thus far to learn from the many leaders and minds involved in this initiative.

Health Education - its importance at school

A recent study revealed that sharing BMI results of overweight and obese children with their parents had no affect on whether children lost weight years later http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/07/08/no-point-in-telling-parents-about-kids-weight/ . Although one might think this is surprising, it coincides with our experience when only presenting individuals with their health status data, and little information on what the data means or resources/programs to work on improving such metrics. Without the latter, it can be assumed that individuals, will at a minimum, understand they have health risks, but certainly not understand the importance of those risks or how to better manage them.

Currently, I am working with a local elementary school to improve their culture of health. The goal of the initiative is to increase awareness of healthy habits throughout the community, and ultimately improve the health of the students, families and staff of the school. This study is timely, as the school has been measuring  BMI and fitness levels for all students. To date, a standard one-page report has gone home to parents letting them know of their child's results. It would be ideal to continue these health measurements, but create communication pieces that emphasize the reason for measuring these stats, the importance of managing them, and how the school is working to provide an environment supportive of healthy activities. Ultimately, the changes in policy and environment would improve student health status.

Although it is not the school's responsibility to manage the health of their students, the school environment teaches ideals. Understanding how many hours children are in school during the year, and the impact the school environment can have on children, improving school policies and environment to support healthy habits is a necessity to afford our children a healthy, prosperous life. It is exciting to see how many schools throughout the country are focusing on health as a key priority of their environment.