Most worksite wellness programs today are not really wellness programs at all - they are
employee health management programs. And you would like to know the difference, right?
Health and wellness can be depicted as being on a continuum with health located at one end and
wellness being at the other end. The midpoint of a health - wellness continuum can be
considered to be the neutral point.
In a work place setting, on the health side of the continuum, the focus is on addressing the
employee's health status. This generally means focusing on the employee's chronic illnesses and
health related risk factors.
At the far end of the health section, the focus would be on such things as chronic disease or
condition management, treatment adherence and medication adherence. At this end of the
continuum, it would also be appropriate to educate employees about specific health plan
benefits related to their disease and best practice treatment guidelines and protocols. To
better help manage their health issue, employees located here on the continuum might also
benefit from chronic disease self-management type programs.
Remaining on the health side of the continuum, but moving closer to the continuum's neutral
point, the focus of the worksite wellness program becomes employee risk management and disease
prevention. Risk identification typically involves the use of a health risk assessment (HRA)
tool with or without the use of worksite based biometric screenings. The use of these tools
allows the employer to see at an aggregate level, the risk profile of their employee
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