Newsletter - January 2008

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Employee Health and Benefits - A Future Vision

Employers are facing dramatically rising costs for providing health benefits to employees and their families. Recent research has established that lifestyle factors and behavior dictate 60 to 80 percent of an individual's health and wellness, however, employers are still reticent to implement proactive health programs. Can employers (and potentially, governments in social care systems) positively affect change in health behavior? Evidence from similar programs in workplace safety suggests employers actually have a very good record in motivating behavior change through corporate focus, shared goals, and proper motivation.

Even with this record of success in motivating behavior change, employers still face many hurdles in providing the "ounce of prevention" that health, fitness and wellness programs represent. The financial cost and return on investment roadblocks are the first to arise. A basic lack of data on investment required, time-to-return, and cost-savings produced through preventative programs makes executives shy away from allocating expenditures. Today, this data takes years to collect and analyze making it nearly impossible to make effective decisions. Another hurdle is the transient nature of employees and the fear that employers paying for preventive health programs will only be providing a benefit to the individual's future employer. And no discussion of personal health can be complete without the acknowledgment of legal and privacy issues that organizations face when attempting to implement programs at any level. In total, these challenges have established an environment where employee health (with the exception of associated costs) rarely appears in corporate goals or high-level mission statements.

Despite this melange of obstacles, some pillars are appearing to support the implementation of proactive health programs. Many companies are beginning to establish baseline programs such as health risk assessments (HRA's) putting valuable personal health data into the hands of their employees. Other companies are making strategic moves to embrace wellness programs and the importance of healthy employees. Cathy Murphy, VP of HR Operations at Blue Shield of California revealed, "we're embarking on a strategic goal to create a culture of health among our employees that emulates our business and mission. A healthier California can begin with us." A final piece of the puzzle may be personal health records (PHR's) providing employees with a secure, transportable reservoir of their health data. While these programs are all positive, they tend to share a few common issues:

1. Measurement of health status is usually annual.
2. Measurement and/or wellness programs require co-location.
3. Employees do not receive timely feedback on the impact of their healthy efforts (e.g., working out, changing eating patterns, etc.).
4. Adoption/usage by employees is difficult to track.

How will employers and organizations overcome these issues and collect the data for lifestyle and behavioral activities?

Personal health devices providing accurate measurements of health metrics and new, innovative fitness devices providing exercise and basic activity data are becoming commonplace. However, the transportability of this key data and the interoperability of the devices are THE required elements to connect the existing pillars and provide a sustaining foundation for proactive programs for employee health. This is the role technology must play, "supercharging" employee wellness programs and removing the hurdles for implementation. The benefits and capabilities that may be achieved with technology and data based employee benefits programs become clear.

Many organizations are moving in the right direction with Health Risk Assessments, on-site health clinics with bio-metric testing, health coaches, fitness centers, etc. Collecting personal health data imposes new requirements on corporations. According to Richard Zall, a partner at the law firm, Proskauer Rose, LLP, " Employer collection of health data can be extremely useful in measuring wellness program effectiveness, but employers should recognize that identifiable employee health data is subject to privacy protections under federal and state laws; as a result, employers should establish safeguards to limit company access to individual employee health records and develop analytic tools based only on review of aggregate employee data." Group data opens the door for providing group targets that form the basis for shared goals and objectives, transforming the employee population into a community. Cathy Murphy concurs, stating "Technology is offering a tremendous opportunity to assess employees' readiness and offer immediate feedback supporting their health behavioral change." New personal health devices offering weekly or even daily measurements provide data on shorter intervals, enabling faster cost analysis and superior evaluation of programs. Utilizing these devices in their on-site health clinics can jump-start a corporations' data collection and a first step to implementing new programs.

At the individual level, data can be provided to employees in their personal health record (PHR) and personalized to meet their specific needs. Utilizing personal health technology enables users to take much more frequent, even daily biometric measurements to measure health status. Users receive rapid feedback on the impact of their actions. Even small interventions have an impact. A recent study demonstrated significant improvement in health status simply by providing study participants with pedometers and a daily walking goal. There are many personal health technologies available and/or in development to expand these applications exponentially. One of the significant benefits of making available a broad array of these technologies is that individuals can select which devices are most relevant to them. Dr. Brigitte Piniewski, Director of BioWellness Research for Oregon Medical Laboratories added "This objective data can be applied in many ways and provides almost real-time flexibility so programs can be modified and enriched, encouraging higher participation rates and long term adoption." Feeding this activity and health data into a PHR allows significantly improved trending capabilities as well as access. Ms. Murphy offers, "This use of technology supports both the employee in their wellness journey and just as importantly, our program design through group and organization data." Health coaches can now become much more proactive in providing assistance and motivation. This frequent interaction can significantly enhance employee engagement/adoption.

As employee health and engagement make a larger impact on corporations, HR & Benefits executives need to play a role in setting strategies. As Cathy Murphy confirms, "The importance of this goal is driving our annual Leadership Conference theme of Leading Well. We're going to make achieving and staying healthy an easy thing to do for our employees. We truly believe it is the right thing to do." Employee benefits executives must take the first step by identifying and purchasing standards-based, interoperable personal health devices and services for their employee programs. For both the employer and the employee, new personal health technologies can pave the way to better overall health, improved employee engagement and long-term cost savings. The bounty of new data and analysis capabilities provide the tools for better decision making and improve the chances corporations will adopt and benefit from proactive health programs.

• James E. Fisher
  HR & Benefits Working Group Chair, Continua Health Alliance
• Troy Severson
  Marketing Working Group Chair, Continua Health Alliance

In the News

The Continua Health Alliance continues to turn heads! Please read the following articles featuring the release of key components of the first set of technical guidelines and how Continua member companies are changing the health care field:

• Going Mobile (Page 4) (Disease Management Advisor)
• Continua Health Alliance Reveals Key Components of New Technical Guidelines (Page 8) (Managed Care Outlook)
• Intel's Whitlinger Discusses Continua Consortium's Progress (Digital Healthcare & Productivity.com)
• Continua: An Interoperable Personal Healthcare Ecosystem (IEEE Pervasive Computing )

Upcoming Industry Events

Continua Winter Summit (Members Only)

Date: January 22-24, 2008
Venue: Dublin, Ireland

IHRSA 2008 March 5-8, 2008

Date: March 5-8, 2008
Venue: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California

WHCCE 2008

CONTINUA PARTNER INDUSTRY EVENT

Date: March 10-12, 2008
Venue: Berlin, Germany

Continua Townhall Meeting (Members Only)

Date: March 19, 2008

Working Group Progress Report

Employer HR Work Group

The Employer HR WG is focused on developing a Position Paper articulating how Continua member companies technologies and services can enhance current Employee benefit plans.

Marketing Work Group

The Marketing WG is currently developing the Continua Certified logos and style guidelines.

Membership Update

Continua's membership has reached more than 140 member companies and is still growing! Most recently, AT&T Mobility, InfraRed Integrated Systems Ltd., Institute for Infocomm Research, Ryoyo Electro Corporation and In Practice Systems Limited joined at the Contributor level. The Continua Health Alliance currently has a membership of Promoter and Contributor Members comprised of more than 140 companies. Membership gives you the opportunity to contribute to the advancement of the Continua vision as well as participate and network in Continua members only events. If you would like to read more about the Continua Health Alliance membership benefits please click here.