Wellness outreach efforts touched over 6,000 employees

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Foundation for Healthy Communities of the Ohio
Hospital AssociationHOSPITALS AS THE HEALTHIEST
WORKPLACES IN OHIO!2005 MID-YEAR GRANT SUMMARY

• Wellness outreach efforts touched over 6,000
  employees
• 1,139 employees are fully participating in
  wellness programs. 82 are female
• Nearly 150,000 has been spent on the wellness
  programs through June, 2005---28 is grant
  money---an average of 129 per employee
• Nearly 7,000 hours of programming and activities
  have been provided to hospital employees---thats
  over 7 hours per employee!
• 45 different wellness activities have been
  offered---ranging from health fairs, education
  sessions, health assessments, exercise classes to
  nutrition counseling
• Hospitals are using many types of incentives to
  encourage employee participation free health
  screenings, discounts on health insurance
  premiums, health club membership, raffles, free
  education sessions, earn points to be redeemed
  for gifts, free pedometers, free lunch, etc.
• One of the most popular incentives is the free
  pedometers, because they give employees a way to
  easily track their own increase in activity.
  Free health assessments, counseling and personal
  attention are the types of incentives that may be
  effective in keeping employees focused on
  reaching their long-term goals.

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MID-YEAR SUMMARY (continued)

• Nearly all employees participating are in the
  high and medium categories for Body Mass Index.
  Nearly two-thirds are high to medium risk for
  systolic blood pressure and slightly over
  one-half are in high to medium risk for total
  cholesterol (data based on 4 hospitals)
• Some of the lessons learned by the hospitals in
  the first six months of the programs are
• Getting the message out to all hospitals
  employees can be challenging because not all
  employees have access to email, and employees
  work on different shifts and at numerous
  locations. A variety of communication methods
  need to be used.
• Not all the hospitals have staff dedicated to the
  wellness program and that may limit what can be
  accomplished. In fact, as the program becomes
  more popular one full-time staff may not be
  enough.
• Some of the hospitals have not been able to
  collect all the baseline program outcome measures
  for all wellness participants. Having the
  hospitals use the same health assessment tool
  would minimize this inconsistency.
• What employees are saying
• The Get a Life Program has really helped me to
  better grasp the knowledge of eating better,
  exercising and overall wanting better health, but
  most of all it helped me to gain self-confidence.
  Before the program, I barely moved, working 8
  hours a day wore me out but thanks to the love
  and support of the Get A Life Staff, I am now
  very active." Southern Ohio Medical Center)
• I always thought losing weight would be
  difficult and I wouldnt be caught dead in a gym
  or exercise class. The free pedometer and the
  way to track my steps online gave me the freedom
  do to this on my own time, without any
  embarrassment or inconvenience. (Middletown)

Data is based on five hospitals unless otherwise
noted.