Damon Lee, wellness coordinator for Children’s National Health System will discuss, “Improving the health and wellness of your employee population,” 11:30 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 15, at the Cerner Health Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. Lee will highlight the successes from Children's National and where the organization is headed in the employee health and wellness space.
In 2015, Children's National Health System (CNHS) launched an employee wellness program to over 6,500 beneficiaries. The plan focused on improving the health and wellness of its employee population, and CNHS partnered with Cerner to provide a full spectrum of at-your-finger-tips health and wellness resources.
The suite of actionable and prescriptive services included a wellness portal, personal health assessment and a self-service reporting tool. In addition, Cerner facilitated the launch of biometric screenings to the CNHS population.
As wellness coordinator at CNHS, our team is responsible for the overall planning, development, coordination, implementation and management of all employee wellness functions at CNHS. We believe that taking an aligned and streamlined approach to health internally enables caregivers to stay focused on what matters most – taking care of patients.
The LiveWell employee wellness program initiated three main goals:
- Create an environment that supports daily healthful living
- Empower employees to take ownership of their well-being
- Increase employee awareness of their personal health risk factors
On the first day of the program launch, over 500 health risk assessments were completed, and we were optimistic when more than 4,000 were submitted over the next six weeks.
From the information obtained from the aggregate health risk assessment data, the team developed a variety of outreach programs to engage employees. Opportunities included physical activity groups, smoking cessation classes, weight management programs, massage therapy, financial wellness counseling and nutrition challenges.
Next week during the annual Cerner Health Conference, I’ll provide more in-depth updates on the program’s progress and how it’s impacted CNHS employee population.
This year, CNHS reported that it manages 72 percent of the employee population with a customized Cerner Wellness program.
The Color My Plate Challenge, a competition tasking employees to eat more fruits and vegetables every day over four weeks, was highly favored and visible throughout the organization.
One employee noted, “my busy schedule didn’t allow me to participate in your program, but I want you to know that the communication and department chatter around the program was the kick start I needed to increase my fruit and vegetable intake. Thanks for all that you do!”
