AHRQ’s Health Care Innovations Exchange Focuses on Employee Wellness and Health Promotion Programs

The latest issue of AHRQ's Health Care Innovations Exchange features three profiles of innovations designed to promote employee wellness and reduce health care costs. One featured profile describes an incentive plan offered by the state of Connecticut that improved screening and medication adherence, increased use of primary care services, and reduced specialty and emergency department visits. Enrollees in the plan enjoy several financial benefits, but also must meet various requirements to remain in the program, including obtaining age- and gender-appropriate assessments and screenings and disease management services. Enrollees receive regular reminders about unmet requirements and have access to tools to help meet them. Of the 54,000 eligible employees and retirees, 98 percent voluntarily enrolled in the new program. After implementation of the program, per-member-per-month health care costs for active employees grew at an annual rate of just 2.2 percent compared with an 8.9 percent annual rate for the 2.5-year period before the program was offered. The Innovations Exchange Web site contains more innovation profiles and quality tools related to employee wellness.

Innovations & QualityTools | AHRQ Innovations Exchange

Innovations

Comprehensive Wellness Program Improves Employees' Health-Related Behaviors and Risk Factors, Stems Rise in Employer Health Care Costs 1/8/2014

A large employer offers a comprehensive wellness program combined with financial incentives to use its various components, leading to broad participation, improvements in health-related behaviors and risk factors, and a leveling off of overall health care costs.

Corporate Health and Wellness Program Attracts High Levels of Participation, Significantly Reduces Health Risks and Overall Health Care Costs 12/9/2013

A comprehensive, customizable corporate health and wellness program has attracted high levels of participation among employees, leading to significant reductions in risk factors, substantial cost savings, and a positive return on investment.

Onsite Clinic Staffed by Bilingual, Culturally Competent, Interdisciplinary Team Brings Health Education and Primary Care to Low-Income, Uninsured Workers12/4/2013

Work Healthy brought together an interdisciplinary team of certified nurse practitioners, health educators, and community health workers to provide onsite health education, health promotion, and primary care services to low-income, uninsured workers in the mushroom industry.

Policy Statewide Campaign Provides Education and Technical Support to City Officials, Leading to Policies That Promote Healthy Behaviors 11/20/2013

A statewide campaign provides education and technical support to city officials throughout California, leading many cities to pass policies and resolutions that promote changes in the physical environment that help residents to adopt healthy behaviors.

Policy Statewide Collaborative Combines Social Marketing and Sector-Specific Support to Produce Positive Behavior Changes, Halt Increase in Childhood Obesity 11/20/2013

A statewide collaborative supports schools, after-school programs, primary care practices, child care centers, work sites, and communities in promoting increased physical activity and healthy eating in Maine youth, leading to favorable behavior changes and a halt in the increase in childhood overweight/obesity.

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QualityTools

The CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard: An Assessment Tool for Employers To Prevent Heart Disease, Stroke, and Related Health Conditions 1/15/2014

This tool is designed to help employers assess the extent to which they have applied evidence-based health promotion interventions in their worksites to prevent heart disease, stroke, and related conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.

Worksite Wellness Toolkit 12/18/2013

The Healthy Arkansas Toolkit was created for businesses and organizations to begin or expand worksite wellness programs.

The Patient-Centered Medical Home: A Purchaser Guide 6/19/2013

This guide provides an overview of the patient-centered medical home concept, addresses the question of why health care purchasers should consider supporting it, and then defines a list of potential strategies that purchasers should consider, including some recommended immediate steps that could be taken.

Childhood Obesity: It's Everyone's Business 2/20/2013

This toolkit provides employers with a range of options that may be implemented in their own company to address childhood obesity.

Communication Toolkit: Using Information to Get High Quality Care 12/19/2012

This toolkit helps employers, labor unions, and others frame and deliver messages to employees about the meaning and importance of getting evidence-based health care. The tool kit takes the concepts of making health care decisions on evidence and translates them into language that employees can understand.

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