Wellness Plans : Employee Biometric Screening.

Medical screenings are important health promotion programs to identify chronic condition in their early stages. Once identified, wellness intervention programs can help prevent a illness from progressing.

Working with local hospitals and other organizations, you can obtain information on providing screening and intervention programs that could improve your employees’ health and save your organization money in absenteeism, treatment for illness complications, and decreased productivity.

Listed here are some ideas to help get you began.

Based on your Worker Needs and Interest Survey and the demographics of your workplace, consider offering periodic screenings to find specific health risks like –

• Blood Pressure Checks to identify personnel with pre-hypertension or hypertension (high blood pressure),

• Cholesterol Screenings for total, HDL (good cholesterol), LDL (bad cholesterol) and/or Triglycerides

• Blood Sugar Screenings fasting or non-fasting to screen for possible diabetes,

• Body composition, like Body Mass Index  or body fat measures

• Bone density for potential risk of osteoporosis,

• Cancer screenings such as, skin evaluations, mammograms, or PSA screenings,

• Vision checks for glaucoma, or visual acuity

• Other screenings depending on your employee population and needs

Your local hospital, business doctor practice, or health department my provide assistance. Notwithstanding, if you have a young workforce you may want to concentrate on health promotion programs that’ll keep them healthy rather than screening for early identification of chronic condition.

The focus of your wellness program may  be healthful lifestyle practices to reduce risk and prevent illness.

In addition to the health testings, consider offering a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) to all workforce.  The Health Risk Assessment (HRA) will help to identify factors that may lead to additional risks, like use of tobacco history, stress levels, perception of health, family history, job satisfaction, support systems, and mental health.

Frequently the screening results are included on the Health Risk Appraisal, which provides a more extensive snap shot of health risks.  The summary results provide the important information to plan appropriate interventions.

Wellness Program Interventions

The key to the success of screenings and Health Risk Assessments (HRAs) is the interventions or follow-up programs.  The information from the screenings increases awareness and often arouses staff members to consider making healthier changes.

It’s the follow up interventions that provide the essential support and assistance needed for employees to actually make and maintain those changes.

The interventions can include individual follow-up and ongoing counseling, individual or group medical coaching on the risk factors, behavior modification programs, and/or organizational support. Examples include –

• Strategies to lower blood pressure

• Managing diabetes

• Taking care of your heart

• Healthful eating

• Weight loss strategies

• Increasing physical activity

• Use of tobacco Cessation

Of course, this is for individual information only. Any follow-up interventions planned by the company would be based on interest expressed by the staff member.

Based on the results and your Wellness Committee objectives you can plan the best strategies for your company and employees. Consider the community resources available to provide services, like health associations, hospitals, health care providers, and/or public health agencies.