The February 18, 2010 issue of FORTUNE magazine has an insightful interview with Delos Cosgrove, the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic.  In the story, Dr. Cosgrove talks at length about how our nation’s growing obesity epidemic is intertwined with the national issue of escalating health care costs. When discussing ways to reduce health care costs, Dr. Cosgrove commented:

“Let’s take obesity. It accounts for 10% of the cost of health care in the U.S. — we will never be able to control the cost of health care until we begin to control the epidemic of obesity. Two-thirds of the U.S. is overweight, and one-third is obese. We are the fattest nation in the world. Our rate of obesity is going up so much that probably half the U.S. will be obese in the next 20 years. We have to do something, and there are plenty of things we can do.”

This is one of the main reasons that incentaHEALTH has put its energy into building a cost-effective platform for targeting obesity.  Once you begin looking at health and wellness, you discover that many of the health issues that we are faced with can only be addressed by dedicating significant attention to reducing overweight and obesity.

You can read the full FORTUNE story here.

A recently concluded study by researchers at Columbia University and The City College of New York has found that being overweight is now the leading cause of preventable disease.  The study—which looked at survey data from more than 3.5 million American adults over a 16 year window—found that for the first time overweight has edged out smoking as the leading contributor to illness.  This is due to the rapid rise in the degree of overweight and obesity in the U.S.

As stated in a review of the findings by Scientific American:

When the survey started, in 1993, smoking was by far the leading cause of preventable death and disease. But by the study’s conclusion, in 2008, obesity had tipped the scales—increasing in prevalence by 85 percent—to become the primary cause of preventable illnesses and poor health-related quality of life.

Findings such as these add even more urgency to the call for proven behavior change programs such as incentaHEALTH that can help individuals and organizations improve their health.

The full story can be found on Scientific American’s web site.

A goal for all corporate wellness programs is to create lasting behavior change among the program participants.  One of the most challenging habits to instill is that of daily physical activity.  Some people find the gym is their best bet.  Others take to their neighborhood and find ways to be active by walking, running, hiking, etc.  Some even find ways to incorporate increased physical activity into their work routines.

In this article, an incentaHEALTH participant named Bert describes the creative ways that physical activity can become part of a workflow and actually result in improved performance on the job.  Hats off to Bert for thinking out of the box and making wellness work!

Researchers with the American Institute for Cancer Research have found that more than 100,000 cases of cancer each year are caused by excess body fat.  It’s bad enough that obesity increases an individual’s chance of getting cancer, but the damage caused by obesity continues once the cancer has begun to affect the body.  Obese cancer patients don’t respond as well to treatment as healthy weight patients.

“Obesity not only raises the risk for getting cancer,” said Glen Weldon, Education Director for the American Institute for Cancer Research, “it also has a negative effect on survival and can make treatment more difficult.”

We have often discussed the economic impacts of obesity, but findings like this remind us of the significant health impacts that go along with obesity.

You can read the CNN article on the findings here.

incentaHEALTH is demonstrating its wellness incentive program at the 15th Annual MFA Medical Fitness & Healthcare Conference in Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center on December 3rd and 4th.  Please stop by and learn more about how our patented HEALTHspot kiosk combines with sequential email coaching to help individuals improve their physical activity and nutrition.

In a new study released on October 29th, researchers found that people at high risk for diabetes cut their changes of getting the disease by 34% through weight loss, exercise and reducing fat in their diets.  For those over 60 years of age, the risk of developing diabetes was reduced by almost 50%.

You can read the full story in this article from the Denver Post.

In my last post I introduced a model called The 4R’s.  Reach, Retention, Results and ROI.  The goal of this model is to create a consistent framework for measuring the success of a wellness program.  Today I came across a fun video that illustrates the first R: Reach.

In the video below you can see a clever idea for getting people to use the stairs instead of an escalator.

The potential population that they are trying to reach with this campaign is the group exiting the subway platform each day.  As a result of making the healthy option (the stairs) more  fun, they have engaged a group of people that previously chose not to use the stairs.

Too many wellness efforts in the past have relied on soft measures of success.  A few testimonials here.  Self-reported survey data there.  You get the idea.  This may have been acceptable in early days, but today your wellness efforts are expected to help control the ever-rising health care costs we are all facing.  When you are working on your own wellness program design, try to measure actual outcomes wherever you can.  With the use of the latest technologies available to us, you should be able to generate real-time data about multiple aspects of your wellness efforts.  Each of the areas in the 4R’s model should be measured explicitly.

To continue the example from the video above, assume that 100 able-bodied people exit the subway platform each day.  That represents our total eligible population.  Before the “piano campaign” was implemented, 90 people took the escalator and 10 took the stairs. This represents a reach of 10% (10 people out of 100 possible).  Assume that after running the campaign they now have 50 people taking the stairs.  This is a reach of 50%.

In upcoming posts, I’ll be laying out examples of reach in a typical corporate workplace setting to give you some real numbers to sink your teeth into.

In the arena of corporate wellness programs, tools such as incentives, anonymous kiosks, and team challenges can all help improve the reach of a program.  We’ll talk more about ways to maximize your program’s reach as we continue our tour of the 4R’s.  And then we’ll move on to discuss what you should do once you attract a lot of people to your wellness program. It’s not enough to just get your employees signed up…you have to keep them engaged long enough to build healthy new behaviors.

Have you come up with creative ideas to improve reach in your wellness efforts?  If so, please let us know.  We are always looking to improve the world of wellness.

Everyone is trying to control health care costs.  This inevitably leads to the use of corporate wellness programs.  While just about anything you do to promote health among your employees is going to have at least some positive impact, the degree of your success can vary wildly.  What is needed is a consistent methodology for measuring the effects of any wellness program under consideration.

incentaHEALTH uses a model called “The 4 R’s” as a simple way to have a consistent measuring stick for just about any type of wellness effort. The four R’s are: Reach, Retention, Results and Return on Investment (ROI).

It’s a simple framework when you initially examine it, but there are powerful insights to be gleaned by consistently applying the model to your various wellness efforts.  In the coming weeks, I’ll get into some real world examples of how to optimize each of the four Rs for your organization.

We will be presenting a session titled “Reach, Retention, Results and ROI: Exploring the Four Critical Components of a Successful Wellness Program” at the upcoming World Health Congress on Obesity.  The conference takes place September 30 through October 2 in Alexandria, Virginia.  During this talk, we will be examining each of these concepts and providing simple ideas for maximizing each one.  You can learn more about the session here.

Have you come up with your own measurement approach that helps cut through the clutter and get to the bottom line impact of your wellness efforts?  Please let us know…we’re always trying to learn new ideas and put them into practice!

On June 30, 2009, incentaHEALTH and Hercules Industries were awarded the 2009 Promising Practices award from the Colorado chapter of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease.  The award—presented by Colorado Lt. Governor Barbara O’Brien—is designed to recognize innovation in workplace wellness programs.

Highlighted during the event was a 19% reduction in health care expenses experienced by Hercules Industries as a result of their embrace of work site wellness programs.  Through the incentaHEALTH program available to all employees at Hercules, participants receive the following:

• tailored email coaching on physical activity, nutrition, and overcoming barriers
• private weigh ins on the HEALTHspot kiosk
• quarterly cash incentives for sustained improvements in Body Mass Index (BMI)
• social media and real-time team competitions tied to their BMI progress (as tracked by the kiosk)
• access to health coaches for personal assistance when needed

Top-level support for the program has been critical to the success of the efforts to date.  In the words of Hercules Industries CEO Bill Newland:

“This program is very popular with our employees because it puts them in charge and gives them confidentiality and positive reinforcement,” said Bill Newland, President of Hercules Industries. “Our employees are healthier and more productive, and healthcare costs have been cut by 19.6 percent. This is a great ‘win-win’ program.”

We have built incentaHEALTH around the principle that the most direct way to reduce health care costs is by improving health and well being at the individual level.  We have helped our customers accomplish this by putting powerful behavior change tools in the hands of the individual employees as they make decisions about their health.  And the incentives tied to performance don’t hurt either.  Executive leadership supporting a culture of wellness has demonstrated that an employer can enable bottom-up success at the point where real change is possible: with individual employees, consumers and citizens like you and me.

A full overview of the Promising Practices award event and the corporate wellness efforts at Hercules Industries can be viewed here.

At the CDC’s Weight of the Nation conference in Washington DC last week, the CDC cited a new study showing that the cost of obesity in the United States has doubled over the past decade.  Perhaps even more startling was the statistic that over 9% of all medical costs are now due to obesity.

Some of the objectives for the conference were to:

• Identify strategies that overcome barriers to the primary prevention of obesity for youth and adults in communities, medical care, schools, and workplaces
• Discuss economic analysis of obesity prevention and control efforts (e.g., cost burden of obesity on healthcare system and employers, cost effectiveness of prevention)
• Discuss the use of law-based efforts to prevent and control obesity (e.g., legislation, regulation and policies)

It’s encouraging to see the national dialogue starting to expand beyond just talking about the problem and, instead, looking for ways to impact the drivers of obesity at their source.  Hopefully this will start to shine a spotlight on programs that are delivering proven results.

In my next post I’ll highlight an example of one of our customers that is seeing a measured reduction in health care costs following the implementation of corporate wellness incentive programs.  It’s impressive to see that great things can happen when the key executives in a company support wellness from top to bottom in an organization.