Managed Care - March 2009 - (Page 24) wellness, and then you have to fund it. What I like about consumer-directed plans is that they help people understand the value of health status. They understand the value of taking care of themselves, and then they become their own selfleaders and they make the right decisions. MC: Where do health plans fit in overall? EDINGTON: Many insurance companies are changing into health plans, and I think that is one of the most encouraging movements of our time. Insurers have been transaction companies that just pay for sickness, and they are trying to get away from that. Moving away from the vendor concept of doing business to a partner concept The five pillars of a culture of health Senior leadership. “The CEO must get involved in health care and make a statement about the vision for the company,” Edington says. “It is critical to a company’s survival.” Operations leadership. The senior leadership must hand the reins of implementing the vision over to managers who can design and implement programs and restructure benefits so that the culture aligns with the vision. Self-leadership. Employees have to have access to education and resources that enable them to be in charge of their health, and the culture has to support their efforts to improve their health status. “Their colleagues can not be allowed to get in their way,” Edington says. “There are places where supervisors will make fun of someone because they are eating quiche. Not anymore. They are sensitive to ethnic things, they are sensitive to racial things, and they have to be sensitive to health issues and promoting health.” Rewards for positive actions. “You have to encourage and reward good behavior, because the only behavior that is sustained is behavior that is rewarded,” Edington says. Quality assurance. Companies have to measure the engagement of the company and the engagement of individuals, he explains. “And you have to feed data back into the process for continuous quality improvement.” Source: Zero Trends: Health as a Serious Economic Strategy, 2009 is critical. Vendors provide their products to companies and make money regardless of how close the product fits the needs of the company. Partners provide the product needed by the company and they make money when the company makes money. MC: Is this happening because the Fortune 500 companies are insisting upon it? EDINGTON: Absolutely. Health plans have become major supporters of our work, but the only reason they changed is because their customers demanded it. What companies want is health promotion and wellness. They want sickness coverage, of course. We are always going to pay for sickness. But they want to expand into wellness. This partnership, in my opinion, will make a major difference in the health status of the workforce and in the economic value to the company. MC: You can do a lot with working conditions, but how do you get me to not have that Big Mac on my way home tonight? EDINGTON: I just say, “Go ahead and have it, but here are your consequences.” We have to get through to people with education and incentives. People have to understand that health is more than just the absence of sickness. Health is energy and vitality for yourself and for your children. That’s a social marketing thing. MC: Are health plans going to be drawn into the social marketing part of it? EDINGTON: Some of the health plans we work with are sponsoring community health programs, and I think healthier community initiatives, which is the next step. You can’t have a healthy individual in an unhealthy company, and I don’t think you can have a healthy company in an unhealthy community. So the health plans are going to have to get all the way into the communities. MC: A lot of communities have pretty fragmented health care systems. Are we talking about consortia? EDINGTON: Building a Healthier Chicago has a consortium of agencies that are focused on that effort. That’s exactly what it’s going to take: several health plans, the YMCAs, the health associations, the recreation departments. In Jackson, Michigan, they are doing the same thing. So people are moving in this direction. But how it gets funded is a question. In Indiana, they have passed 24 MANAGED CARE / MARCH 2009
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