OEBB Considers Workplace Wellness Program

September 26, 2011--The Oregon Educator Benefits’ Board (OEBB) received a briefing last week about a new public health initiative of Governor John Kitzhaber’s that might be right up its alley—the Wellness@Work program.

The program’s intent is to promote health and wellness at the workplace. It provides employers and businesses a range of tools and resources to help their employees become healthier, whether that means providing employees with information, or changing the work environment to embrace healthier options.

The program focuses specifically on helping employees curtail or stop smoking, eat more nutritiously and lose weight, and increasing physical activity. Examples of what employers might do are carrying healthier snacks and beverages in a vending machine, or creating a smoke-free work place.

“To create a healthy worksite is to really look at a comprehensive approach,” said Inge Aldersebaes, who’s in charge of the Oregon Public Health Division’s work site policy program, at OEBB’s board meeting. “There’s quite a bit that you can do at low and no cost.”

The program launched in June, and results from two years of collaboration between the Oregon Health Authority and business leaders. Aldersebaes told OEBB’s board that the program is based upon three premises: that people have a personal responsibility for their health, that healthy work places have positive health benefits, and that a supportive work environment can help people be healthier.

One of the Public Health Division’s tasks through the program, Aldersebaes said, is helping work places create an “emotional and physical environment” that’s encouraging to employees. “It really takes time and practice,” she said.

She said employers can benefit from the program. Healthier employees will be absent less, and their health care, disability and workers’ compensation costs will be lower.

What’s missing, Aldersebaes said, is applying the program at schools, to improve school employees’ health. The Wellness@Work program intends to increase the number of wellness programs at Oregon schools to 25 percent by June 2012.

Aldersebaes wants to create a collaborative between school districts, community colleges, advocacy groups, OEBB, and insurance companies such as Providence Health Plan and Kaiser Permanente to get schools involved. She expects conversations between potential partners in the collaborative to begin soon.

OEBB, which administers the health plans for more than 150,000 school district employees, community colleges and education service districts and their dependents, is well positioned to implement Wellness@Work in its plans. It’s already created a Weight Watchers benefit, which began in 2010 and has resulted in the collective loss of 111,000 pounds amongst its members. Its plans also cover tobacco cessation programs.

The OEBB board took no action regarding the Wellness@Work program, although comments were positive. Steve McNannay, executive director of the Oregon Education Association Choice Trust, may have signaled support for the program when he commented that the majority of healthcare costs have nothing to do with doctor visits or the emergency room.

“Forty percent are lifestyle related,” he said.