Workplace wellness continues to thrive. Currently more than 90% of employers with at least 200 workers have some type of workplace wellness program in place. Employers see unhealthy habits, i.e. smoking, poor nutrition, and alcohol consumption, as major contributors to higher health care costs for employers; 21% of the total national health care spending is due to obesity alone. For employers there is also a cost due to lost productivity, overweight and obese workers miss an estimated 450 million additional days of work each year compared to healthy workers - an estimated $153 billion dollars just in lost productivity!
So let's go viral. Digital wellness tools allow employers to more efficiently track and support their employees' progress towards their health and wellness goals. As more behaviors become monitored, it's possible to gain a better sense of an employees health fingerprint and influence people's behavior in real-time. Wearable devices can track physical activity, calorie intake, and sleep and mobile apps and software that can remind employees to get up and take exercise breaks are piquing employers interests. Employees typically appreciate these programs, 93% of consumers participating in healthy eating say they or their family were helped, 85% said fitness activity were useful and 83% benefited from stress management programs.
While digital solutions are useful and allow for many features that were not possible in the past, do not rely too heavily on just digital solutions alone. Digital can be more efficient, but not necessarily better, it really depends on what exactly a company is trying to achieve. Digital health solutions will continue to grow, and there will be many more innovations seen over the next 5 or so years, which will benefit both the health care system and workplace wellness programs.
Learn more tips for your employee wellness programs at iHealthBeat!