Company Health and Wellness : Measuring Program Results

Information to evaluate your program comes from regularly collected evaluation and follow-up data of your program that look at process and outcomes of your program.

The Worker Health Program has available a computerized case-management system which includes queries that allow simple assessment of process and outcome results at any point in time.

Process Assessment

Process evaluation looks at the  Company Wellness Program’s impact as seen at various points in time.

Information that is gathered from the various forms that wellness workers fill out ought to supply you with the following:

• How many employees were screened?
• How many workers who were referred to a doctor went?
• How many staff members who expressed interest in health improvement programs went?
• How many workers who were referred to health improvement programs went?
• How many workers who went to health improvement programs completed them?
• How many employees are in follow-up caseload?

You can use this sort of process evaluation to evaluate and learn about the health of your program.

Outcome Assessment

A central intention of the program is to improve the health of employees. Information on how to judge how well your program is meeting this intention is called “outcome assessment” because you are evaluating the end results or outcome of your program.

In wellness programs, objectives are measured by specific (outcomes) behavior changes and reductions in health risk levels. Have workers lowered their Blood Pressure? Have they lost weight? Are they working out more? Is alcohol consumption at a safe level? For example these are the types of questions you can ask to learn if you are reaching your objectives:

• For staff members with elevated Blood Pressure (BP) (140 / 90 or higher or on medication) at screening, what percentage have it under control (below 140 / 90) a year later?
• What is the change in average Blood Pressure (BP) levels among all staff members with elevated Blood Pressure (BP) 1 year after screening? Two years later?
• For staff members with high blood cholesterol levels (above 240) at screening, what percentage has reduced their cholesterol to borderline-high levels (200-239)?
• For workers with borderline-high blood cholesterol levels, what percentages have reduced their cholesterol to the desirable range (below 200)?
• What is the modification in average cholesterol levels among all staff members with high and borderline-high blood cholesterol levels 1 year after evaluation? Two years later?
• For staff members who were overweight at evaluation, what percentage have lost 20 pounds or more a year later? Ten pounds or more? What is the average weight loss?
• For staff members who were smokers at screening, what percentages have quit smoking? For at least a year?
• For workers whose level of alcohol consumption put them at-risk at assessment, what percentage have quit drinking alcohol? Are consuming alcohol at levels considered safe by CDC standard procedures? Have reduced their drinking, but are still at-risk?
• For employees, what percentages are working out at least three times a week for at least 20 minutes?
• If fitness levels were measured, what percentages have improved fitness?

Set a regular time such as every 6 months to look at which staff members your program is reaching and how effective it is at helping them reduce their health risks. Use this information to make new decisions about how to direct your program efforts. Then make the modification you need to improve your program.

Some may feel that evaluation is an extravagance; it is not. Assessment is a significant part of a wellness program. You will need to be aware of what is working and what is not. Decision-makers who fund the program need to be updated on the performance of the program. Assessment will provide you with significant data to maintain and expand the program and convince management to continue to support the program.