WORKPLACE HEALTHSCAN. springbuk.com HEALTHIEST EMPLOYER, LLC springbuk.com WORKPLACE HEALTHSCAN

Transcription

1 WORKPLACE HEALTHSCAN The Last Mile in Workplace Wellness: Connecting the Dots With Leading & Lagging Health Indicators springbuk.com 1

2 WORKPLACE HEALTHSCAN THE LAST MILE IN WORKPLACE WELLNESS: CONNECTING THE DOTS WITH LEADING & LAGGING HEALTH INDICATORS IS NEW DATA THE EARLY INDICATOR FOR HEALTH? EMERGING WELLNESS METRICS INDIVIDUAL MEASUREMENT Weight Trends EMPLOYER MEASUREMENT Productivity EXPANDED BIOMETRICS TO PREVENT COUCH POTATO WORKFORCE HEALTH METRICS: WHAT S AHEAD? New analytics tools, like Springbuk, are the bridge to the last mile in true prevention. HOW TO PASS THAT PIVOTAL FORK IN THE ROAD? LEADING DATA WITH SPRINGBUK 2

3 THE ROAD NOT TAKEN The historical focus on sub-clinical indicators like elevated blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol actually undermine true prevention, since these triggers typically appear after wellness has been compromised. INITIAL DECLINE THE LAST MILE IN WORKPLACE WELLNESS: SYMPTOMS ONSET CLINICAL INDICATORS FULL-ON DISEASE CONNECTING THE DOTS WITH LEADING & LAGGING HEALH INDICATORS WHY WAIT? TODAY WE SPEND HERE Picture a room of 100 employees. Now, imagine they are all healthy by clinical standards. Fast-forward a few years, and we d learn that many of this healthy 100 would face a disease that is preventable. Yet, our ability to target the right interventions at the time is limited. Why? Because we re reliant on lagging health indicators. Historical data, such as medical claims and pharmacy, has its place in analyzing behavior that s already happened, but is less useful for the decisions of today and tomorrow in population health. As a result, preventive healthy lifestyle programs often target employees who have already passed this crucial fork in the road. Many wellness initiatives look more like early-stage disease management than true prevention. The programs attempt to salvage the health of individuals who have already lost fitness, adopted unhealthy food choices, gained weight and slipped into chronic health concerns. The good news is that the early signs of health are all around us. Whether it s depression, sleep or allergies, data is a friend of today s employer. A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR WELLNESS METRICS Innovative employers are making earlier intervention a reality by applying a new set of wellness metrics. These baseline and predictive measures include both positive indicators of wellbeing. They fall into two categories: That s where leading data is arming employers. New data sources and emerging analytical tools make it possible to harness health indicators early in the employee s health lifecycle before the health decline takes its first creeping step. Leading data connects the dots between true prevention, wellness, and the avoidance of eventual disease. Individual metrics and risk indicators: For example, the weight trend for a single employee over a 6-month period. Workplace metrics: For example, sleep activity tracking as a prediction toward productivity. 3

4 Successful implementation of the new framework requires an understanding of which upstream metrics are related to downstream health consequences. It also hinges on finding new ways to partner with employees to move the needle on these measures. LEADING INDICATORS: INDIVIDUAL METRICS Leading data often starts at the individual employee level. As health technology and connectivity transform how we track health, the individual will play a vital role. EXPANDED BIOMETRICS MOBILE & CONNECTED HEALTH Emerging mobile and connected health technologies can provide an even more complete picture. For example, fitness trackers make it possible to monitor amount and frequency of exercise for individual employees so that a decline in normal exercise levels can be spotted early, before couch-potato status is reached. Correlating check-ins on a phone app with biometric information can help identify potential stress-related health risks in the workplace that are actionable by the employer. These additional insights also help employers target interventions to the workers who actually need them, avoiding the demoralizing worst-case scenario where someone who s already well-informed and eating right is pushed to attend Nutrition 101 lunch-and-learn. Biometric measures like blood pressure and blood sugar checks are widely used for early detection strategies. However, properly-monitored trends in these indicators allow them to serve equally well as measures of positive wellbeing. For example, identifying weight gain while the employee is still in the healthy range enables much earlier identification of root causes and appropriate intervention and is the most opportune time to engage. Why wait until health has declined? Moreover, employers can now capture and analyze upstream biometric data sources on an ongoing basis in areas as varied as stress, physical range of motion and functional fitness, and sleep quality and quantity. Previously unavailable or impractical to routinely capture and analyze, this kind of information sheds light on potential threats to wellness long before they become a clinical event. LEADING INDICATORS: WORKPLACE METRICS Employers can directly influence workplace environment and culture more easily than they can directly change individual employee lifestyles. Moreover, the work environment itself includes wellness indicators and risk factors that are most meaningful at a population health level. These key metrics are unique to the workplace and primarily result from employer decisions. WORKPLACE ENVIRONMENT Metrics that track the impact of best-practice improvements in the physical environment play an important role. Examples include modeling the impact of stairwell improvements to encourage employees to skip the elevator, facility improvements like fitness centers and green space, and ergonomic workplace design. 4

5 WORKPLACE CULTURE Workplace wellness initiatives have historically emphasized the lifestyle behaviors of employees both at home and at work. While employers can support healthier individual habits by providing resources like gym access and healthy food options, psychosocial factors almost entirely within the control of the employer are just as important. For example, employee stress assessments can provide early warning of high levels of work-related anxiety, which has well-documented effects on physical health. That provides an opportunity for the employer to identify and address root causes like management culture and practices related to resource allocation. As employers use analytics to identify the most relevant indicators of wellness, the ability to tap at-risk employers on the shoulder and help them protect their health long before they pass that pivotal fork in the road is undoubtedly the decade s most important advance in workplace wellness. READY TO USE LEADING DATA TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGAGEMENT? WORKFORCE HEALTH METRICS: WHAT S AHEAD New analytic tools, like Springbuk, are the bridge to the last mile in true prevention. In this new generation of analytics, employers have the ability to quickly uncover connections between lagging clinical risk indicators and leading indicators of individual and workplace-specific wellness. These insights enable highly targeted interventions that drive prevention. 5