The Akron General Wellness Champion Awards were created in 2007 by Akron General Health System to honor community leaders
— individual and corporations/organizations — that have made impressive strides toward improving the personal health of employees.
This year, three organizations and three individuals have been named Wellness Champions.
CORPORATE GOLD
City of Dublin
When the city of Dublin faced cutbacks in
its budget a few years ago, the municipality
didn’t want to reduce any of the health care
benefits it offered. But a comprehensive
study revealed doing nothing would result in
a nearly 47 percent increase in claims costs
over the next three years.
So in 2006, city officials began a wellness program, Healthy by Choice, which was tied to the
benefit program by targeting risk management, prioritizing health behavior change
over health care costs and offering incentives.
The main incentive is a 100 percent waiver
of an employee’s health care premium contribution and a free recreation center membership. Other incentives can be purchased
through “healthy bucks” that are earned by
participation in voluntary wellness programs. Bucks are redeemed for existing
recreation center programs and services
already being provided to the public.
Healthy by Choice was first implemented
with the city’s nonunion staff, which comprises 52 percent of Dublin’s work force. To
reach employees and their families, the city
developed a centralized Web site with benefit plan and program information that was
used to show employees how wellness
behavior and benefits are linked.
In the first three years, the program has
proven successful. The city increased its low-risk employee population to include more than
72 percent of its covered adult population.
Also, the high-risk group was reduced from
about 11 percent to 7 percent. In cost terms,
each person who moved from high to moderate risk reduced claims costs by nearly $2,200,
while each person who moved from moderate to low risk saved $700. Because of these
results, the city negotiated Healthy by Choice
into two labor agreements and hopes to do
so with its final union contract in 2009.
