Collaboration targets community, employer benefits of preventive health
Poor health doesn’t just affect the individual. It affects that person’s family, employer, even the community at large, with the cost measured in time and productivity lost.
To help develop definitions for health and productivity management, the Center for Health Value Innovation recently announced an alliance with two national organizations. The non-profit center will be working with the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and the Integrated Benefits Institute to create standardized data and result metrics that can be used to enhance employer effectiveness and community health programs.
“Now more than ever, we need to amplify the message that poor health adversely impacts the physical and financial health of a community and identify options for improvement,” said Cyndy Nayer, president and CEO of the St. Louis-based center, in a press release issued earlier this month announcing the collaboration. “We anticipate that program participants will begin utilizing key value-based strategies for designing healthcare programs, including HPM modeling and finely honed measurement tools. As a result, compromised communities will begin to see improved health and a reduction in health cost trends.”
According to Nayer, ACOEM, based in Elk Grove Village, Ill., brings to the table a resource of 5,000 physicians and other healthcare professionals focused on occupational and environmental medicine and workplace health, as well as an HPM Toolkit. San Francisco-based IBI, she said, is a pioneer in supplying health and productivity research, measurement and benchmarking tools.
“The inroads made by the center and IBI are aligned with ACOEM members who are passionate about improving worker health through preventive services, clinical care, research and education,” said Ronald Loeppke, MD, a Fellow at ACOEM and chairman of IBI’s board of directors. “We look forward to developing and implementing programs that are relevant to the practice of preventive medicine both within and outside of the workplace.”
“We bring a well-developed research agenda into this strategic alliance, with an eye toward improving health-related productivity by improving health and measuring results,” added Thomas Parry, IBI’s president. “This partnership advances our dedication to leading businesses from concept to reality in integrating health, absence and disability management as an investment in a productive workforce and corporate America’s bottom line.”
