Medisys Health and Wellness Blog

Medisys Health Group (“Medisys”), Canada’s leading national provider of healthcare services to corporations is pleased to announce the launch of its comprehensive employee wellness program “FreshStart” as a compliment and natural extension of their existing corporate health services.

FreshStart aims to help corporations decrease healthcare-related costs, increase employee productivity and job satisfaction and enhance their corporate image by providing customized employee health guidance and ongoing support based on tangible evidence.

The FreshStart program includes:

• Health risk assessment questionnaire to determine personal risk, willingness to change and main drivers for the individual
• Complete blood draws to obtain baseline employee health data – Not finger-prick testing (blood sugar, total cholesterol, LDL & HDL and triglycerides)
• Metabolic syndrome calculation
• Blood pressure reading
• Waist measurement
• Body Mass Index (BMI)
• Individual, face-to-face health status reporting to employees by a registered healthcare professional to explain results, answer questions and provide guidance
• Email access to a healthcare professional for follow-up questions
• Comprehensive aggregate reporting to management for goal-setting

“By identifying specific employee health risk factors individually and providing comprehensive feedback to the individual, FreshStart provides employees with personalized health-related information and the tools required to take a proactive approach to their own health.” states Randy McCaig, Director of Employee Wellness Programs at Medisys. “We are finding that employees highly value the one-on-one time spent with the healthcare professional to explain their results and aid in their goal-setting process. The information received is highly targeted information that they don’t usually get to cover in a regular check-up with their family physician.”

Following the onsite health assessment, Medisys provides the company with a de-personalized aggregate report to assist them in understanding their major risk factors. This corporate health overview enables employers to better allocate their wellness dollars to address the root causes of their problems.

“Our program is different from the ‘blanket’ strategies that many other companies offer.” states McCaig, “If a company has 50 smokers, some wellness providers would propose a smoking cessation program. Our program goes further to show the employees’ willingness to change. If only 5 of those 50 smokers are willing to quit smoking, a smoking cessation program will not result in the expected ROI. A smoking education program would be better suited for this situation.”

FreshStart provide employers with 3 critical elements needed to develop an effective ongoing wellness program, 1) a current, accurate snapshot of their employee’s health, 2) information on their employees’ lifestyle and willingness to change and 3) what initiatives the employees want to see offered in the program and how they want to receive the information. This approach allows employers to develop relevant and highly targeted ongoing programs with high levels of participation.

The FreshStart program is available to companies across Canada and is supported by an extensive range of on-site services that are customized to the needs and wants of the employees and the health issues identified in the baseline assessment including: lunch and learns, workshops, travel and vaccination services and annual flu shot campaigns.

“It is important to remember that an employee wellness program is not a ‘nice-to-have’ service or a ‘one-off chair massage’, employee wellness is a long-term business initiative with a tangible return on investment,” states McCaig, “Our 2008 survey of the Top 100 Employers shows that although the vast majority of companies do not track the results of their program, those who do track the results generally find that their expectations are met or exceeded.”

The complete Medisys’ Top 100 Employee Wellness whitepaper can be downloaded for free here: http://www.medisys.ca/docs/whitepapers/wellness_top_100.pdf