SOURCE Thomson Reuters -September 9, 2008
Thomson Reuters Study Says Telephone Health Coaching Reduces Health Risks
Employers seeking a cost effective way to improve their employees' health and determine the return on investment for their wellness programs may now be a step closer to understanding how to predict ROI, according to a study published in the September issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
The study, conducted by the Ann Arbor-based health care business unit of Thomson Reuters in conjunction with American Specialty Health, estimated the potential ROI from a wellness program administered by American Specialty Health.
The one-year study concluded that a program of telephone-based health coaching for weight management can change employees' behavior, reduce their health risk factors, and potentially produce an ROI of 1.17 to 1.00. The study estimated total projected savings of $311,755. Fifty-nine percent of the projected savings, or $184,582, was attributed to reduced health care expenditures and 41 percent ($127,173) was attributed to productivity improvements.
"Every day in the business world, financial analysts utilize mathematical econometric models to predict future outcomes, such as changes in revenues and expenses for an organization," said Ron Z. Goetzel, vice president of consulting and applied research for Thomson Reuters and research professor at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. "In a similar way, our ROI model can be used to forecast how changes in employee health behavior can affect an organization's future healthcare and productivity-related expenditures."
Douglas Metz, American Specialty Health chief health services officer, co-authored the study.
"We are pleased that this collaboration between American Specialty Health and Thomson Reuters has produced an economic model that demonstrates that employers and health plans can reliably and efficiently forecast a return on investment for employee health improvement plans," he said.
The study followed 890 employees enrolled for 12 months in a telephone coaching program for obesity management. The study measured 11 key health risk variables, including nutrition, fitness, smoking (current and former), stress, cholesterol, blood pressure, alcohol abuse, depression, glucose and body weight. At the end of one year, the study found statistically significant reductions in seven health risk factors. For example, the study demonstrated significant decreases in risk prevalence for poor eating habits (21.3 percent reduction) and poor physical activity (15.1 percent reduction). All of the biometric measures related to overweight and obesity also decreased, including percent overweight or obese (5.8 percent reduction), weight (4.5 pounds reduction), and body mass index (0.9 reduction).
"This study demonstrates that telephone health coaching programs can reduce key health risk factors that drive up employer health costs, and further supports our position that these kinds of programs can be powerful cost containment tools for employers seeking to ratchet down healthcare expenditures," said George DeVries, chairman and chief executive officer of American Specialty Health.
