Avoid these health promotion pitfalls
Avoid these health promotion pitfalls
Expert shares valuable lessons for success
Well-designed health promotion programs offer managed care organizations a unique opportunity to lower their medical costs by preventing disease. However, experienced corporate health promotion professionals understand that these wellness programs, usually offered to employees in the workplace, have some limitations.
If you're new to the health promotion arena, take advantage of these lessons learned over the years by Larry S. Chapman, MPH, chairman and senior consultant for Summex, an integrated health management services company, in Seattle. Many health promotion programs, he says, are limited in the following ways:
1. Voluntary enrollment. Making participation in health promotion programs voluntary means that most programs do not reach the 35% to 45% of the population that needs the programs most, says Chapman, who also serves as editor of The Art of Health Promotion, which is a supplement to the American Journal of Health Promotion, published in Keego Harbor, MI.
2. Low participation rates. Health promotion programs that are more than five years old often experience significant participation rate drops, Chapman says.
3. Limited effect on dependents. If health promotion programs are offered in the workplace, they usually fail to reach dependents who account for a significant portion of an employer's health care costs.
4. Ineffective use of health risk appraisals. Health risk appraisals often are used as stand-alone "snapshots" of individual health. For appraisals to be effective, members who are identified as being at risk for developing chronic disease must be followed-up and health promotion activities must target those high risk members, Chapman explains.
5. Overuse of mass screening. Performing annual health screening for symptom-free adults is of little value, Chapman says. Instead, managed care organizations should target health screening to those identified as being at risk for a specific health issue, he says.
6. Fragmented programming. Health promotion programs often are fragmented, with little integration among individual components, Chapman notes. "This leads to a very haphazard feel to the typical user."
7. Little coordination with primary care physicians. "This an area that MCOs are in an excellent position to address. Traditional work site programs have had little contact with the physicians who provide care to the program participants. This often leads to a lack of reinforcement or, in the worst cases, actually undermines the good work done by a health promotion program."
8. Limited injury prevention efforts. Few workplace health promotion programs address recreational, auto, and home safety injury prevention concerns, Chapman says. "Simple programs such as auto safety belt use campaigns can lead to substantial savings."
9. Limited motivation of employees to adopt healthy behaviors. Chapman suggests that managed care organizations developing workplace health promotion programs should add incentives for participation or positive behavior changes. Incentives could include merchandise or financial rewards such as contributions to 401(k) plans, cash, or reductions in the employee's contribution to health benefits costs, he says.
10. Difficulty evaluating the impact of the program. It is difficult to measure what illness or injury is prevented by a health promotion program, he says.
"You must have an information system that allows you to look across your database and make linkages. If you don't, there's no coherence or reinforcement to your health promotion efforts. The effort lacks a strategic perspective that allows you to target programs in a way that produces an effect," he cautions.
(Editor's note: For additional information on health promotion dos and don'ts, see stories at right and on p. 85.)
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.