Health and Wellness
Summary
The American Hospital Association is committed to employee health and wellness programs. As part of its Health For Life: Better Health Better Health Care roadmap, the AHA's Long-Range Policy committee focused on identifying emerging practices in hospital employee health and wellness.
Hospitals have an essential role in their communities because of their leadership and their missions. Hospitals are one of the largest employers in their towns and therefore can have significant impact on improving the health of the nation.
They also play a critical role in achieving the goals of Healthy People 2020, a science-based, 10-year national list of objectives for promoting health and preventing disease. Additionally the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) builds on the Health People framework and offers incentives to promote employee health and wellness programs.
In order to capture current practices and provide recommendations to the hospitals on health and wellness programs, the AHA conducted a survey in spring 2010. Based on 875 respondents, researchers analyzed the results. Then, member of the Long-Range Policy committee summed up the analysis and presented the finding in “A Call to Action: Creating a Culture of Health.”
The committee offers seven recommendations for hospitals looking to create and sustain wellness programs. They are:
- Serve as a role model of health for the community
- Create a culture of healthy living
- Provide a variety of program offerings
- Provide positive and negative incentives
- Track participation and outcomes
- Measure for return-on-investment
- Focus on sustainability
Further detail on each of these recommendations, along with actions steps and examples can be found in the entire report, A Call to Action: Creating a Culture of Health.
AHA Resources
A focus on wellness is one of the 5 spokes in the Health for Life Framework. The wellness page focuses on goals and public policy ideas to promote good health-physical, mental and oral.
Additionally the Long-Range Policy Committee released A Call to Action: Creating a culture of Health. The 26-page report features 7 recommendations and the key elements needed to achieve them.
Health Reform and Wellness
ACA 2010 permits employers to provide incentives and penalties beginning in 2014. Further, smaller employers (100 employees or less) can receive grants to fund wellness programs beginning in 2011. Additionally, the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council is charged with developing a national health improvement strategy. Further information on the implementation timeline may be obtained at Kaiser Family Foundation website.Business Case
According the 2010 AHA survey on health and wellness, the number one motivator for implementing a wellness program was the reduction of overall health care cost, followed by reducing absenteeism, improving morale and providing an example to the community. Health and wellness programs may lead to decreased health care costs but because the impact may take years to realize, the return on investment is not always clear.
However, a recent article in the journal Health Affairs states that medical costs decrease $3.27 for every dollar spent on wellness programs. Additionally absenteeism costs fall $2.73 for every wellness dollar, suggesting that wellness programs could be beneficial for budgets and productivity.
