What Is a Wellness Program

Introduction

A wellness program is a program that encourages healthy behavior among a group of people or individuals. The term "wellness program" is frequently associated with large employers who implement various health programs and incentives to decrease health care costs. A wellness program does not have to be associated with a large employer, however. Wellness programs can be implemented in faith-based organizations, after school programs, community centers, neighborhoods, and even individual households.

History

A corporate wellness program is an employer-based program that encourages healthy behavior among employees. While we may think that only a large employer that can afford to hire wellness coordinators and health educators have would have a wellness program, the benefits of encouraging healthy habits among employees have made even small employers implement wellness programs.

While a wellness program may have many different aspects and targeted behaviors, the two most important and beneficial parts of a wellness program are those that increase physical activity and smoking cessation. Heart disease, diabetes, strokes, and even cancer are linked to lack of physical activity and obesity. Since approximately two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, a wellness program that emphasizes healthy eating and increasing physical activity can have a great impact on health care and insurance costs. Smoking is also linked to heart disease, stroke, and various forms of cancer, so a wellness program that offers smoking cessation classes can significantly reduce health care costs incurred from smoking-related diseases.

Features

Hospitals, nursing homes, and other employers that are part of the health care industry usually have qualified health educators on staff who can easily transition into coordinating a wellness program. Employers that are not in the health care sector sometimes create a Wellness Coordinator or Wellness Director position and hire a physician, registered nurse, nurse practitioner, or other health care professional to start a wellness program. Typically, that person will offer various health education classes on nutrition, proper eating, disease prevention, tobacco cessation, and other topics. Although it is not required to start a wellness program, larger employers will often have an outside firm do a health risk appraisal (HRA) to assess what the most important health issues are among employees. If an employer or any other group does perform an HRA, it is important that the assessment be conducted in compliance with the confidentiality requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). A large employer may add or upgrade an onsite gym and add increase healthy menu items in the company cafeteria ways to encourage participation in a wellness program.

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