Posts from — December 2008

Effective Corporate Wellness Programs include the use of data sources in support of Corporate Health Promotion Plan planning, implementation, and evaluation. Data sources can be used to complete a community needs assessment, develop realistic Corporate Health Promotion Plan goals and objectives, and gain Upper Management support.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Data and statistics
• http://www.cdc.gov/DataStatistics/
• Data and statistics are available by topic (i.e., asthma, injuries, MRSA).
• Data access tools are available to customize data tables and query datasets (i.e., Healthy People DATA2010, tobacco use-Attributable Mortality, Morbidity, and Economic Costs).
• Nationwide survey data is available (i.e., National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)).

CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
• http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/index.htm
• BRFSS is the world’s largest, ongoing telephone health survey system. BRFSS has been tracking health conditions and risk behaviors in the US yearly since 1984.
• Chronic Disease Indicators are divided into seven categories: physical activity and nutrition, tobacco and alcohol use, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, overarching conditions, and other disease and risk factors.
• Prevalence data is also available (i.e., weight classification by Body Mass Index and age).

Corporate Health Promotion Plan data collection and assessment is often avoided because of a perceived lack of resources for this very important Corporate Health Promotion Plan component. Use the suggestions below to take advantage of a variety of resources available at your company or in the local community.

Medical Interns and Residents
• If your On-site Health Care Center has an internship Corporate Wellness Program, get to know the Internship Director.
• Take advantage of these resources – including having the Director and/or interns/residents implement the outcome data collection plan for your Corporate Wellness Program.

Local college and graduate students
• Where appropriate volunteer agreements are in place, use local college/graduate students to help collect, input, and analyze Corporate Health Promotion Plan data.
• Take advantage of the fact that these students are often looking for projects.
• If there are no “health-related” students/interns in your area, consider using organization students. Let them calculate a cost avoidance or ROI for your Corporate Wellness Program.

Other Medical Personnel
• Partner with other Medical Personnel. Find out who is collecting data, what data they are collecting, and how they are collecting it.
• If they are using a survey and the survey administration process is already in place, ask if you can add a question or two.
• Be aware of other research going on at your facility. They may already be collecting data you need OR may have assessment resources that can be shared.
• Make sure other departments in the Medical center know you can always use some extra help if they have personnel with any down time. Use these resources for data entry or other administrative tasks.
• Make use of the volunteers to help collect and input data.

Previous Corporate Health Promotion Plan members
• Previous Corporate Health Promotion Plan members are also a good resource.
• They may be willing to lead a class session, provide encouragement to current Corporate Health Promotion Plan members, or help collect data.
You can improve data collection and assessment by taking advantage of local resources. Using these resources expands the reach and impact of your Corporate Wellness Program.

Keeping Corporate Health Promotion Plan data organized is essential in order to be able to determine Corporate Health Promotion Plan impact and participant progress. Use the simple steps below to keep your data organized.

Manage Corporate Health Promotion Plan data electronically.
• Storing Corporate Health Promotion Plan outcomes data electronically is the best way to manage that information.
• An electronic system will enable you to review and analyze the data more efficiently.
• Scan old surveys and other Corporate Health Promotion Plan information that exist only on paper into .pdf format for permanent storage.

Find the Corporate Health Promotion Plan system that works best for you.
• Some staff members are more comfortable with spreadsheet applications; others rather work with database applications.
• You will be more likely to use a Corporate Health Promotion Plan that you are familiar and/or comfortable with.
• Standardize data collection and organization. Keep data columns/fields in the same order for all Corporate Wellness Programs.

Keep the Corporate Health Promotion Plan as simple as possible.
• You do not have to be a Wellness Programming wizard or use complicated data entry interfaces in order to manage Corporate Health Promotion Plan outcomes data.
• A simple spreadsheet is an excellent way to keep your data organized.

Store all Corporate Health Promotion Plan data numerically.
• Using numbers (instead of words) will make the data much easier to enter and analyze. By way of example: use “1” for yes; “0” for no OR “1” for male; “2” for female.
• Number survey responses that contain strings of words. By way of example: instead of entering the responses: “patient education videos”, “news,” or “no TV,” number the responses so you only have to enter “1,” “2,” or “3.”

Label all Corporate Health Promotion Plan data clearly.
• Make sure all the data columns, rows, or fields are labeled. The data is worthless if you don’t know what data is in which column.
• The spreadsheet/database should include an explanation for column, row, field, and data abbreviations and a key for numbered responses.

Use consistent Corporate Health Promotion Plan data units.
• Make sure all data entered into a given column is expressed with the same unit of measure. By way of example, enter all heights as total inches, not as a combination of feet and inches.
Putting your data in order by using a simple system that works for you will enable you to track participant accomplishments. Keeping your data organized also makes it easier to communicate Corporate Health Promotion Plan impact to leadership and make Corporate Health Promotion Plan improvements as needed.

A gap analysis is an assessment tool that enables a organization to compare its current capabilities and performance with industry benchmarks and expectations for performance. A gap analysis is used to establish areas that have room for improvement.

Gap analysis can also be used for your Corporate Health Promotion Plan to determine where the program stands now and how the Corporate Health Promotion Plan can better follow evidence-based recommendations.

To begin a gap analysis, ask these simple questions about your Corporate Wellness Program:
• What is the current state of the Corporate Wellness Program?
• How does the Corporate Health Promotion Plan measure up to evidence-based practices? (i.e., the desired state)

The gap is the difference between the current and desired states.

After the gap has been identified, the next step is to determine the action steps that are needed to close the gap. These actions answer the question: “How can the Corporate Health Promotion Plan move forward towards the desired state?”

Sometimes the gaps that need to be filled can be addressed through Corporate Health Promotion Plan changes; other gaps might require policy changes. However, using a gap analysis will help you establish areas for Corporate Health Promotion Plan improvement as well as the actions needed to make progress towards those goals.

Corporate Health Promotion Plan organization plan review (from Key #19)
• A Corporate Health Promotion Plan organization plan is a roadmap for success.
• Your Corporate Health Promotion Plan organization plan should convincingly demonstrate that your Corporate Health Promotion Plan will help the organization to achieve its goals.

More smart Corporate Health Promotion Plan organization planning strategies

Planning the Corporate Health Promotion Plan
• Find out how your organization plans so that your planning process will be in sync with what already happens in the organization.
• Involve other staff members. A planning team brings their combined experience and perspective to the process. Including potential partners as you plan will make it easier to get their buy-in later.

Thinking of the big picture
• Consider the barriers and challenges that might be encountered during Corporate Health Promotion Plan implementation. Develop strategies ahead of time to overcome these potential problems.
• Do a SWOT assessment and examine Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

This assessment will help you establish potential problem areas or resource shortfalls as well as opportunities for growth or increased partnerships with other company personnel.

The WORST organization planning strategy: sitting in your office; working by yourself.

The best Corporate Health Promotion Plan organization planning strategies
• Get out of your office; get out of the organization. The more staff members you involve in the Corporate Health Promotion Plan planning process, the better. Always look for ways to expand your network.
• Keep your budget staff members informed. Get to know their philosophy of financial management.
• Be able to articulate the impact if your budget is not fully funded.
o Stay away from basing your impact-if-not-funded argument solely on: “We have to.”
o Instead, describe the impact-if-not-funded with phrases like: injuries to workers, raised compensation costs, raised medical care costs for patients, lost work time, loss of licenses/accreditations, loss of workload to the Tricare network.
• Have purchase requests ready to be submitted. There is often a short window of time to process these requests. Having the information gathered ahead of time will make it easy to submit the information right away.

A well thought-out Corporate Health Promotion Plan organization plan is essential in these times of shrinking budgets and resources. A good organization plan will help you gain leadership support and help you get and keep resources needed to implement the Corporate Wellness Program.

A organization plan is a roadmap for success. Use the guidelines below to develop a realistic organization plan and budget for your Corporate Wellness Programs.

What is a organization plan?
• A plan for success
• A document that convincingly demonstrates that your Corporate Health Promotion Plan will help the business to achieve its goals.

Questions to ask when developing a Corporate Health Promotion Plan organization plan
• Why do you need to do the Corporate Wellness Program?
• What are you going to do?
• Where are you going to do it?
• Who is the target audience?
• How are you going to do it?
• Who is going to implement the Corporate Wellness Program?
• How much will the Corporate Health Promotion Plan cost Upper Management?
• What is Upper Management going to get out of the Corporate Wellness Program? Why should Upper Management invest in the Corporate Wellness Program?

Corporate Health Promotion Plan organization Plan Components
• Title and duration of the Corporate Health Promotion Plan
• Points of contact
• Background information (description of need; bibliography/literature review; how the Corporate Health Promotion Plan will help achieve the organization’s goals)
• Corporate Health Promotion Plan description
• Goals and objectives
• Implementation site
• Target population
• Work plan
• Partnerships and collaborations
• Timelines and milestones
• Budget and resource requirements (dollars and staff members)

Gaining the support of leadership
• Clearly link the Corporate Health Promotion Plan goals and objectives to the organization’s strategic plan.
• Focus on the desired outcomes.
• Use the right language for the right audience. By way of example, Upper Management is interested in decreased clinic visits, increased provider productivity, management of the health of the population. However, Upper Management is interested in increased readiness, decreased lost duty/training time, and decreased disability and FECA claims.
A well thought-out Corporate Health Promotion Plan organization plan will help you gain leadership support, help you get and keep resources needed to implement the Corporate Wellness Program, and keep the Corporate Health Promotion Plan on track towards meaningful outcomes.

As they say: “timing is everything.” Use the guidelines below to guide the timing of Corporate Health Promotion Plan activities and data collection.

Timing: Corporate Health Promotion Plan Start-up
• Consider the optimal time to start a new Corporate Wellness Program. Take into account preferences of the target population and other factors that could affect enrollment and participation.
• By way of example, coordinating the start of an adult weight management initiative with the start of school in August or September may be a good tie-in with a “fresh start.”
• On the other hand, starting an adult weight management initiative In January may not be a great idea because of the constraints that weather may put on exercising outdoors.
• Take advantage of other timing cycles at your company. Planning a marketing blitz just after the PCS turnover has been completed is a good way to let new personnel know what Corporate Health Promotion Plan options are available.

Timing: Corporate Health Promotion Plan Participant Support
• Consider how frequently Corporate Health Promotion Plan sessions should be offered to provide the best support and education for members and the best opportunity for success.
• Get feedback from members regarding what session frequencies work best for them.
• Consider the timing for other support mechanisms like email encouragement. What timing of those messages will benefit members most: Weekly? Bi-monthly? Monthly?

Timing: Corporate Health Promotion Plan Data Collection
• Collecting data is an excellent way to track participant progress and also to establish potential problems within a Corporate Wellness Program. So, give some thought to the frequency and timing of data collection.
• Select metrics that can realistically change during the Corporate Health Promotion Plan implementation time period. By way of example, BMI and weight may not change very much during a 10-week Corporate Wellness Program; however, step counts are more likely to noticeably change.
• Some data, such as participant responsiveness to out-of-class assignments (like food journals) and other interim data (like step counts) will provide important information needed to “adjust fire” as needed and make Corporate Health Promotion Plan changes if something is not working.
• Be flexible regarding data collection frequency. Instead of requiring that members complete an physical fitness log every day, for example, consider asking for a “snapshot” summary from two or three days during the week. You will still get information to review, but members will have an easier time complying with the assignment.

Timing: Corporate Health Promotion Plan Follow-up
• Because the we are such a mobile population, it’s best to plan some sort of post-Corporate Wellness Program follow-up data collection within two to four months after the Corporate Health Promotion Plan ends.
• You can always try to collect additional follow-up data at 6 or 12 months after Corporate Health Promotion Plan completion. However, if you collect the data sooner, you’ll at least have collected some short term Corporate Health Promotion Plan impact information before members are lost to follow-up.

Corporate Health Promotion Plan communication is important to all aspects of Wellness and preventive medicine and is relevant to:
• Healthcare provider-patient relationships
• An individual’s exposure to, search for, and use of Corporate Health Promotion Plan information
• Effective counseling and patient education for behavior change
• Content of public health messages and community campaigns

Effective health communication should have these attributes:
• Accuracy: content is valid and error-free
• Availability: delivered or placed where the intended audience can access the information
• Balance: content presents benefits and risks of potential actions
• Consistency: content is locally consistent over time and is also consistent with information from other reliable sources
• Evidence-based: content and methods of delivery are based on relevant scientific evidence
• Reach: content gets to or is available to as many staff members as possible in the target population
• Reliability: content source is credible; content is kept up-to-date
• Repetition: delivery of/access to the content is continued over time, to reinforce the impact with the audience and to reach new members of the target population
• Timeliness: content is provided when the audience is most receptive to, or in need of, the specific information
• Understandability: reading, language levels, and format are appropriate for the specific audience (i.e., Employees, Family Members, Garrison leadership, etc.)

What the research says about health communication
• Health communication best supports Wellness when multiple communication methods are used to reach specific audiences.
• Effective Wellness and communication initiatives should reflect an audiencecentered perspective, and reflect the preferred formats, contexts, and means of communication for the intended audience.

Material adapted from: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010. 2nd ed. With Understanding and Improving Health and Objectives for Improving Health. 2 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, November 2000.
http://www.healthypeople.gov/document/HTML/Volume1/11HealthCom.htm

Evaluation of successful Corporate Wellness Programs has revealed several primary Corporate Health Promotion Plan strategies to increase Corporate Health Promotion Plan effectiveness and impact overall Soldier health.

Strategy #5: Using a small number of targeted priorities maintains Corporate Health Promotion Plan focus.
• Needs assessment data can be used to establish leading health/wellness needs and also high risk populations.
• Choosing a handful of specific health/wellness needs on which to focus will maximize efficient use of resources.
• Keeping the Corporate Health Promotion Plan focus small will avoid duplication of other ongoing company Corporate Wellness Programs.

Strategy #6: Use standardized processes whenever possible.

Reduce the amount of variation within your Corporate Wellness Programs by standardizing all the processes needed for Corporate Health Promotion Plan planning and implementation. By way of example:
• Use the same spreadsheet format for data collection so that the columns are in the same order. This way you can compare data more easily.
• Reuse the same forms for enrollment and attendance. Change the heading as needed.
• Look at other Corporate Health Promotion Plan processes (like registration, evaluation, marketing, etc.). What parts of those processes can be standardized?
• The Wellness and Prevention Initiatives website (http://chppmwww. apgea.army.mil/dhpw/Population/HPPiFunction.aspx) has many standardized Corporate Health Promotion Plan resources in a variety of topic areas.

Strategy #7: Corporate Health Promotion Plan delivery methods should be flexible and adapted to population needs.
• Delivery of products and services may depend on: company needs, training requirements, other scheduling considerations (such as work/duty schedules, school scheduling, etc.), participant preference, and/or availability of staff or space.
• Be flexible: the same produce/service delivery methods may not work for every population.
• Some company’s may want services provided to them as close as possible to the company location; other companies may prefer as many services as possible bundled together at once (regardless of location).
• Take wellness and preventive medicine beyond the walls of the organization in order to meet leadership and employee needs. Answer the question: “How can we best help leadership and Employees to fulfill their mission?”

Evaluation of successful Corporate Wellness Programs has revealed several primary Corporate Health Promotion Plan strategies to increase Corporate Health Promotion Plan effectiveness and impact overall Soldier health.

Strategy #1: Communication with leadership is essential
• Assess leadership priorities.
• Report Corporate Health Promotion Plan outcomes back to leadership in a timely manner.

Strategy #2: Corporate Health Promotion Plan planning must be driven by data.
• Determine specific needs of the target population.
• Focus on the health status of the population as a whole to establish the top health concerns.
• Data should drive decisions regarding which health/wellness needs should be addressed first.

Strategy #3: Use electronic data collection and reporting as often as possible.
• Centrally collected data in an electronic format is fundamental for determining population health/wellness needs.
• Electronic reporting is also very valuable when communicating Corporate Health Promotion Plan outcomes to leadership and other stakeholders.
• Flexible reporting capabilities allow data to be presented as information that can support decision-making, in formats that decision-makers prefer.

Strategy #4: Multidisciplinary collaboration enhances employee health and maximizes available resources.
• Collaboration between health disciplines increases effectiveness of Wellness and preventive medicine initiatives.
• Don’t forget to look outside the organization for collaboration partners.
• Optimized Corporate Health Promotion Plan outcomes can be met by coordinating the activities of medical professionals, cadre, community agents, and funding sources.
• Bundling services together also provides the additional benefit to units by conserving training and mission time.
Implementing these strategies can improve Corporate Health Promotion Plan effectiveness and optimize available resources.