At Ochsner Health System, a nonprofit integrated health care system of eight hospitals and 35 clinics located throughout Louisiana, we had been monitoring our rising health care costs and employee wellness since 2003. Our organization had quickly grown to 10,000 employees after several new acquisitions post-Hurricane Katrina.
As we continued to expand, it became clear that a more integrated and accessible employee health program was needed to replace the home-grown, manual-based wellness program we had in place.
Most importantly, with so many entities under the Ochsner umbrella, improving overall employee wellness and reducing our health care costs company-wide was a major strategic initiative; 7,212 of Ochsner's employees are participants in the Ochsner self-insured health plan.
Ochsner provides a generous premium subsidy to all levels of coverage, so having wellness a top priority for employees was the way to engage employees in the importance of partnering with the company to take responsibility for their own health. The magic was aligning the medical plan premiums in favor of those who participated in the wellness program.
To achieve these goals, the Ochsner team recognized there were a few important challenges to overcome. First, we required a more systematic approach to track and measure each employee's physical activity.
Although Ochsner's previous wellness program enabled employees to earn rewards for staying active, the program relied on employees manually entering activities over the course of the year and submitting the tracking logs to our wellness staff for approval.
It also was vital to be able to track and monitor improvements to overall employee health and ultimately reward those employees who took their health seriously.
The second challenge was identifying how to increase employee participation. Historically, Ochsner's wellness program participation rates hovered around 30% to 40%. Though this engagement rate was higher than traditional industry average participation rates, we still believed there was ample room for improvement.
Lastly, we needed to excite employees about wellness and then make the programs as far-reaching as possible. With an open benefits deadline looming for summer of 2009, time was of the essence.
Finding the solution
In December 2008, Ochsner engaged Virgin HealthMiles to provide our employees with an automated, accurate and verifiable way to capture their daily activity.
With this new program, Ochsner employees had the opportunity to earn points for their physical activity and participation in the program, which enabled them to earn up to $300 annually in cash rewards.
To further spur participation, we offered employees the opportunity to earn significant discounts off their health insurance premiums - up to $2,000 for a family plan - once they reached a certain level in the employee health program, a milestone that reinforced CDC's recommended activity levels.
With clear wellness incentives in place, Ochsner launched a campaign to get as many of our 7,212 eligible employees as possible to participate in the employee health program. With this premium incentive, in addition to the cash incentives for physical activity, Ochsner's participation rate skyrocketed to 78% of all eligible employees within just three months of the program launch.
To educate employees about the new wellness program and accelerate participation, our team employed a multipronged communications approach.
In addition to visiting all the hospital and satellite clinics with an information table situated in high traffic areas such as foyers and cafeterias, we created a section dedicated to the wellness program on "Ochweb," our internal website. Here, Ochsner provided weekly tips on how to join the wellness program and how to earn rewards.
We also offered additional cash incentives to encourage employee participation in the new wellness program. If employees enrolled in the program within a three-month period, they could earn a rebate of $6 per month off their current insurance premium.
We further encouraged employees to use the program's capability to create online challenges to spark some friendly competition between groups and departments.
"It's extremely rewarding to see so many people improve their health," says Dorothy Cain, R.N., system coordinator for Ochsner's employee wellness program. "I receive e-mails every day about how the program has helped employees manage their weight or lower their blood pressure, and I see more and more walking groups during lunch breaks. Many employees have also made new friends in other departments or locations thanks to the online community features built into the program."
Reaping the rewards
One of the greatest benefits Ochsner has realized from the employee health program is its online delivery, which has enhanced companywide engagement. The program has enabled employees to capture their daily activity with activity tracking devices that provide validated data.
Employees also have access to their own online program portal where they view their progress, upload steps captured by their pedometers and log any other activities they have participated in, such as an aerobics class or cycling to work from home.
Employees also use any of the 16 health measurement stations set up within Ochsner's satellite clinics and hospitals to take key health measurements on a monthly basis and earn rewards for doing so.
With the health measurement stations, our HR and wellness team found that employees were able to monitor their health in a more validated and measureable way. The measurements employees took on the stations were instantly uploaded to their own online program portal so they could follow their success.
Automated reporting tools provided our wellness director with more control over managing and understanding the impact of the wellness program. The tools also enabled us to create department efficiencies by greatly reducing the number of staff needed to manage our overall wellness strategy.
Additionally, the flexibility of our wellness program enabled us to reward employees for additional, positive achievements that supported wellness and Ochsner's philanthropic values.
For example, employees could earn additional rewards for an annual physical, having necessary gender-specific tests such as annual mammograms, for donating blood, or for each hour of community service.
Thanks to our reaffirmed commitment to wellness, 81% of Ochsner's employees have enrolled in our new employee health program.
We expect over time to see even more reductions in health care costs, especially around our pharmacy costs, as employees become healthier and are able to reduce their reliance on or eliminate altogether certain medications, with their doctor's approval.
While the national health care trend for 2009 was around 10%, Ochsner's plan trended only 3% while increasing new employee participation by 13%. Employee-only medical claims were down over 2008, by $3 million, including the new employee-participant growth in the plan.
Innovation is a key strategy at Ochsner, and the creative HR and wellness team is making a difference in the quality of life for our employees, which leads to better engagement, patient satisfaction and loyalty.
Joan Mollohan, SPHR, is the senior vice president of human resources for Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, La.
