Businesses promote employee wellness

As a disease management specialist for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Sheila Wofford knows the health risks of obesity and diabetes.

After counseling others for years, the 43-year-old Chattanoogan decided a year ago to take her own advice and start exercising to lighten her once-hefty 297-pound frame.

"I couldn't fit into clothes anymore, and my shoes got small. It was awful," said Ms. Wofford, who dropped from a size 28 to a size 18 in less than a year by regularly exercising at the company's new gym.

The task for Ms. Wofford and 4,000 other Chattanooga BlueCross workers was made far easier with the addition last year of a fitness center, health clinic, pharmacy store and health-oriented cafeteria menu.

The insurer hopes its success will encourage other employers to act similarly to trim down employees' waists and their own health care costs.

"Our move to our new corporate campus here on Cameron Hill gave us a new and unique opportunity to really focus on employees' wellness," BlueCross Senior Vice President Ron Harr said. "We're in this business, and we know it works. But we want to prove it with our own employee population and then take that story out to our customers and help them do it in their work sites."

Already, major area employers such as Shaw Industries, Unum Corp. and the city of Chattanooga offer fitness and wellness programs to help keep their workers healthier and more productive.

Melanie Morton, a 47-year-old nurse from Chickamauga, Ga., who suffers from arthritis, said she started exercising a year ago at the BlueCross on-site fitness center on Cameron Hill.

"My energy level is out the roof compared to what it was before I was exercising," she said. "My boss and family really encouraged me to start exercising, and the folks at the fitness center have made it very easy and convenient to do so."

Now she plans to run a 5-K race in October.

Healthy investments

Mr. Harr said it's too early to see a health-cost payoff, but he expects the investments to reap benefits over the long term.

The 15,000-square-foot gym is operated by a BlueCross subsidiary, Onlife Health. There's a health clinic staffed by nurse practitioners, a walking track around the corporate campus and space for a pharmacy in the $300 million complex that overlooks downtown.

The cafeteria was renamed "the nutrition center" and includes a strict healthy dietary plan: Entrees are under 600 calories and most foods have reduced salt and fat.

Regular soft drinks cost more in vending machines than diet sodas, and less-healthy snacks were reduced in size or eliminated altogether.

So far, though, employees have not bought as many meals in the new cafeteria as the food vendors initially expected.

"Healthy foods can taste good, so we are working on it," Mr. Harr said. "It's a big change, but we know it's the right thing to do."

To encourage employees to get their health screenings and exercise, BlueCross is offering employee cash payments of up to $200 a quarter, Mr. Harr said.

Cultural shift

Employers today increasingly are looking for broader cultural shifts from wellness initiatives, according to Onlife Health President Chris Hunter.

Onlife, which was called Gordian Health Solutions when BlueCross acquired it in 2005, manages the BlueCross fitness center and provides individual health coaches for its members.

"In the past, employers were simply looking at their health claims at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year to see how much the wellness provided was able to drive improvement across the entire health of the population," Mr. Hunter said. "What we see now is that employers want to be able to walk out of their office and see individual employees who are engaged in individual exercise programs."

At Shaw Industries in Dalton, Ga., Human Resources Vice President Paul Richard said the company wants "to create a culture that encourages our people to take ownership in improving their personal health and wellness." Shaw pays for preventive screening and offers incentives to those who stick with treatments for conditions such as diabetes.

The city of Chattanooga last year began awarding prizes to employees who get annual health screenings or exercise regularly, including at the city's new fitness centers, personnel administrator Donna Kelley said.

Ms. Wofford said seeing her company colleagues get in better shape and getting individualized help at the BlueCross gym has helped her stick with her exercise routine.

"You eat what your mommy fixes, and all I ever knew was fried food all my life," she said. "When we moved up here to Cameron Hill and the fitness center was right at work, I knew no matter what, I was going to do it."

She now frequently exercises two hours a day, she said.

"I couldn't have got rid of all this weight if it were not for this wellness center," she said. "They showed us what to do."