Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/961245
155 Executive Briefing Sponsored by: H ealth system leaders are familiar with a rich irony when it comes to their own workforce. Although hospitals are anchor institutions of health in every community, the well- being of those who work inside the hospital is too often put on the back burner. Healthcare workers are accustomed to putting others before themselves. For many, it's their primary motivator for going to work, and the mentality usually spills over to affect other parts of their lives — sometimes to the detriment of their own health. When a hospital's employees neglect their own care, and don't take time for their own well-being, the deficits can collectively affect patient care, dampen employee morale and engagement, and fuel greater employee health coverage costs, among other repercussions. Enter the corporate health and well-being program. The majority of large companies offering health benefits in 2017 offered workers the opportunity to complete health risk assessments and biometric screenings or participate in well-being programs, such as those to help quit smoking, lose weight or adopt healthier lifestyles and behaviors, according to Kaiser Family Foundation. Health and well-being programs offer a range of benefits for any company in corporate America, including reduced absenteeism, greater employee morale, reduced healthcare spending, improved productivity and higher attraction and retention rates. But hospitals and health systems stand to gain something uniquely important from these initiatives: credibility in their community. "Health systems have this unique responsibility to a community: They act as icons of health and well-being," says Mike Heckman, vice president of population health for Cerner. "There are a lot of health systems that want to diversify revenue or advance the types of relationships they have with their communities. One of the best ways to do that is through corporate health and well-being programs." Hospitals and health systems need workforce well-being programs that not only inspire worker involvement but grow more robust and personalized over time to build upon employees' efforts year over year. To thrive as anchors of health in their communities, hospitals can take advantage of the tools to treat their employees' well-being with sophistication, personalization and privacy. As anyone in healthcare knows, working at a hospital is challenging in its own right and the emotional investments are only exacerbated with a patient population of children. To envision a thriving employee health and well-being program, look to one children's hospital in Missouri. In 2013, as an extension of its workforce health program, this employer of approximately 8,000 lives established a full, on-site medical home for its employees. The organization built a new primary care facility, which exclusively cares for hospital employees and their spouses. "A lot of the patients are clinicians," says Mr. Heckman. "It is not like they are unfamiliar with the healthcare world. They are very familiar with it, but they take care of themselves last." The medical home launched with a robust offering of medical services. In a short amount of time, hospital leadership could not ignore how meaningful the center was to employees. This is when the medical home transformed from a clinic to a hub for community, health and well-being. Employees can visit the center to participate in yoga and fitness classes, address their mental health needs and receive care for illnesses or conditions — all with a strong focus on privacy. So how did this pediatric hospital in Missouri do it? It all started with data, says Mr. Heckman. The winning well-being program is data-backed Richness and diversity of data is what distinguishes rudimentary employee well-being programs from those that ultimately improve health and morale, boost productivity and reduce healthcare costs. "The thing that is most important to start with is an understanding, objectively and empirically, of what the population looks like. You have to know your data," says Mr. Heckman. "The more you know and understand your population, the more you will know how to engage them." For a workplace health program to move the needle on physical and mental wellness, ideally employers need three types of data — claims, wellness and clinical. What's more, they need to access it in an integrated way that lets them parse data sets to discern patterns in employees' health outcomes, behaviors and costs. Claims data. "This data may not have the best depth, but it has good breadth," says Mr. Heckman. Systems need claims data to understand opportunities to improve the health of their workforce, but access to this data depends upon the system's relationship with its payer. If a health system is not self-insured, does not have an amicable relationship with its health plan or disagrees with the insurer over data and how it is used, gaining access to valuable claims data can be a slow and time-consuming process. "That's when it is employers' responsibility to advocate for themselves and their employees and say, 'This is my data. I want to use it to understand my population and their health-related needs,'" says Mr. Heckman. Wellness data. Wellness data is the more traditional information employers obtain through health risk assessments, wearable devices, biometric exams and other health activities requiring employee participation. This type of data is relatively limited, as it only reflects the health of participants rather than the workforce at large. "Some employers do a great job at driving engagement and participation and others, quite frankly, don't," says Mr. Heckman. Clinical data. Clinical data is deeper in scope and derived from a health system's EHR or population health technology. "If you can connect the dots between the broad claims data and deep clinical data, you can really understand your population," says Mr. Heckman. The challenge is this: claims data, wellness data and clinical data can all have different owners and come from disparate places. Employers' wellness partners need to access each of these three distinct categories and house the data in a platform that allows it to be viewed holistically versus in silos. A question for hospitals: How healthy is your workforce?