CONNECT
Issue 16
Algorithms and artificial intelligence tools will monitor an individual’s progress as they retake the study and check their progress. As the employee progresses in their well-being, the software will steer them to appropriate new solutions in your plan or re-direct them to other resources along their personalized health journey. Finally, there’s an entirely new healthcare economy and ecosystem that’s been created in this post covid world. Specifically, it’s designed to assess and understand the mental and social determinants of an employee’s health. This correlates with: • the biological, genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors causing non-compliance and poor health • removing the difficulty associated with navigating the health system • reducing the out-of-pocket expense from the employee when they interact with the highest quality providers and facilities. The top providers and facilities deliver the best outcomes at the most valuable price points. In this new healthcare ecosystem, the employee and the employer are in the driver’s seat. It understands the employee’s health intimately and provides specific, concierge-type health solutions that are comprehensive, effective, and meaningful to your employee. This gives them financial equity in a world that has been turned upside down.
Stress, especially chronic stress, leads to various health issues and affects mental health, leading to anxiety and depression. An employer’s health claims are exacerbated by stress and poor mental health. Here are just a few: • insomnia • eating disorders • obesity • depression • anxiety • colds and virus-Covid with hospitalization • circulatory problems • systemic or local infections • diabetes, heart problems • high blood pressure. When an employee is sick, has had surgery, or has had a work-related injury, stress increases the time it takes for them to get back to work. Studies have shown that they’re only present half of the time for the employee on the job, leading to lost productivity. So, we know that stress is destroying our workforce and eating into our profit, but how bad is it in your organization? How can you possibly measure it, especially if it doesn’t show up in health or workers’ compensation claims? At any given time, less than 20% of the workforce is experiencing a severely high-cost claim over $25,000. But what’s happening with the other 80%? Are the employees ok, or are they just a ticking time bomb about to experience chronic diseases, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, or
perhaps a severe workplace injury? Employers must develop ways to
John Cox has been consulting employee benefits for
understand hidden claims in the workforce for those employees who aren’t receiving medical treatment of any kind. And for those employees who aren’t currently receiving care, it’s even more critical to understand how stress, anxiety, and depression are making the condition worse, keeping them from being present at work or getting back to work if they’re on leave recovering. Here’s some ideas and resources to measure and monitor your workforce’s stress and mental health. • Survey your employees. Engage with companies like Sustainable Health Index, SHI, and ADoH Scientific that use advanced technology to measure the entire population, in 90 seconds or less.
27 years, and has worked with many 500 companies, as well as small businesses. John researches the way employers use technology and tools to help employees change the behaviors that cause them to be sick and underperform at work.
Use those insights to give your EAP or mental health teams the ability to test the effectiveness of a proposed solution on small groups of employees or departments. Then roll out to the broader population. • Use absence data, EAP statistics, disability data from insurance plans, unusual dips in productivity, retention problems, exit interviews to gain meaningful insights into where the stressful hotspots exist in your organization.
Offer additional resources like: • National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, Stress at Work | NIOSH | CDC • American Psychological Association- Stress in the workplace (apa.org) • CIPD, Preventing Stress with Good Manager Behaviour | Reports | CIPD
Once you understand the impact of stress on your organization, it’ s essential to monitor the progress of the individuals experiencing high levels of stress. Create tracking metrics and key performance indicators on your data analytics dashboard. Your data science and analytics department can deliver high-impact results. They can set up cohort groups for employees who participate in the programs you have set up due to your research from above.
The cohort groups should include all relative comorbidities affecting the employee’s health and track the cost of correlating health claims as they progress through their healthcare journey. Measuring the financial impact will be vital in measuring the program’s success. Specific tools like those from ADoH Scientific can be used to direct your employees through your company health plan in an interactive way that’s tailored for the employee completing the survey.
John is a passionate believer in proactive healthcare.
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