If you’ve taken the time and effort to sort through multiple different health intelligence solutions and decided on the right one for you, congratulations! But, your job is only half complete. The best health analytics platforms can struggle to produce meaningful data without plan managers engaging in the proper steps to prepare. Beyond the technical infrastructure that needs set up, there are a few small preparatory steps that can go a long way in smoothing the introduction of a new health intelligence software to an employer.
One of the easiest and and most cost-effective steps to gathering adoption from a new member pool is to be transparent about your intentions. There are a lot of reasons that an employer might bring in health intelligence software, but they generally aren’t the type of reasons that need to be secretive. Switching from a fully-insured to a self-funded healthcare plan is often motivated by the desire to cut costs related to healthcare, and the same argument can be made about a health intelligence hub. By investing in a centralized software platform that helps to collect, analyze, and predict healthcare data, employers can offer the type of long-term care that makes for happy and healthy people.
As far as announcements go, in-person works best. It doesn’t have to be much, but gathering the human resources and benefits managers in an office room for a short explanation of the reasoning behind the new health intelligence platform and its ensuing initiative can mean a lot. This helps to clear up any nagging ideas that can pop up in people’s minds, and make sure that the entire company is aligned in the right direction. It may not seem absolutely necessary, but this level of transparency will help to make a clear point that the company is working toward everyone’s best health, not saving money.
Like a growing pet, a successful health intelligence solution needs to be fed as much as possible. Health data is the key to uncovering the areas that can be positively affected. There’s a whole range of activities that employers can ask their employees to buy-in to. For example, tracking the times that employees have been to the company wellness center or onsite clinic still provides good data for a health analytics software, but is a lot less invasive. And there are plenty of other options in between.
The key is to find the balance that works for your employee and your company. Almost any launch of new programs, whether it’s a health initiative or not, is buy-in from upper management. Being honest with the HR team and wellness managers about the benefits that employees will receive from analyzing the company’s health data is critically important. This isn’t a time to tout the money that the company saves through bringing in digital health intelligence, it’s a time to explain the benefits that the employees will gain when they’re more health people overall. The tangential effect of a company full of healthy employees is lower healthcare costs for everyone involved.
A great topic for discussion between HR and wellness professionals when initiating a new health intelligence push is laying out incentives to employees for acting in a healthy manner, but it can be tricky when not approached in the right way. First of all, incentives need to be voluntary bonuses, not taking things away from employees who choose not to opt-in. The choice to join needs to be on the employee, without fear of repercussion if they don’t. Employers who are looking to really get their employees involved can look at options like offering discounted and sometimes free premiums if employees stay active and healthy. Or it could be as small as creating an award for the employee who has the most steps at the end of the week.
Incentives can get tricky though without the right level of transparency from management. The worst thing is to for managers to see like they’re trying to trick or coerce employees into this level of activity. This is where the right benefits consultant or wellness vendor can be key. These are experts in understanding the needs of a company looking to launch a new health initiative, designing effective wellness plans, and communicating all of this to employees. These partners can be the final piece of the puzzle for making sure that a company’s health plans go off as planned.
New health intelligence solutions and initiatives always go over well with these types of proactive steps from employers and the teams they have assisting with their health plans. Take the time to outline what data you need from your employees and how it will benefit them and the rest should fall into place!