Finally, a healthy corporate attitude

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s television workouts may shock the conscience of America’s domestic couch potatoes, but conscientious employers might want to provide copies of the video to every one of their workers.

With health care costs soaring, more companies are looking for ways to sell their workers on a healthier lifestyle. Could there be a more elegant example than Rice, who raised some overly proper eyebrows working her abdominals during a three-part telecast last month? Her regimen may not shave much off the federal government’s medical bills, but individuals like her who take responsibility for their own health can save money themselves, and save their employers’ money at the same time.

In Spokane, the Inland Northwest Coalition on Health and Inland Northwest Health Services, which have launched a service called health@work, are trying to get that message into every workplace they can. The signals now are all wrong.

“The current system rewards people for being sick,” says Diane Lenier, director of Community Health Education and Resources at INHS. “We’re trying to swing from an illness model to a wellness model.”

INHS hopes that model is health@work, which begins with an on-line health risk assessment developed by the Spokane Regional Health District. The survey asks about personal health habits like exercise and diet, as well as family history. Individuals also get their pulse, blood pressure, cholesterol and other biometrics evaluated at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute.

INHS combines the on-line and biometric scores into an individual health evaluation. The employer gets a report that aggregates employee scores. No individual information is disclosed. The reports recommend steps that will address whatever health problems are identified by the tests.

Sometimes, the results surprise employee and employer alike.

Lenier says employees often are unaware their cholesterol or blood pressure levels pose a potential health risk. Employers, for their part, may be unaware how many of their employees smoke, or have poor dietary habits. Such bad behaviors can be the precursors to long-term diseases like cancer or diabetes that can drive health insurance premiums through the roof — or out of reach.

INHS provides some corrective programs like smoking cessation, diabetes training or lunch-time health forums. But health@work may also direct an employer to Weight Watchers for dietary programs or to fitness programs offered by local gyms. One popular program offered in conjunction with the Coalition on Health, Step To It!, enables users to track distances walked or mountains climbed. You don’t necessarily have to walk or run — swimming, dancing, biking, even gardening can be converted into credits.

Lenier says INHS charges clients based on the number of employees and types of education or training they purchase. For the employer, the payoffs are two-fold: reduced absenteeism, and lower health care insurance premiums, although it may be two or three years before better employee health practices translate into fewer claims.

INHS launched health@work internally in July 2003. Only 79 employees signed up. But participation improved dramatically in 2004, to 659 workers, when the company reduced employee insurance contributions. Participants pay $52 per month for pharmacy benefits, for example, while non-particpants pay $61. Also, options like Pilates and Weight Watchers were added. Enrollments grew slightly in 2005 to almost 70 percent of INHS employees.

To keep employees thinking healthy, the INHS headquarters in the Holly-Mason Building is studded with signs that suggest taking the stairs instead of the elevator. The company may make healthy meals and organic fruits and vegetables available in the future.

In the meantime, 31 other area employers with almost 5,000 employees have also purchased health@work. Businesses unwilling to foot escalating employee health bills may have only two alternatives; eliminating workers who refuse to adopt healthy habits, or reducing insurance benefits.

“The idea that we’ll fix you when you’re broken is just too expensive anymore,” INHS spokesman Steve Becker says.

Same for the old sickness model.