Healthy Employees = Happy Employees District starts wellness initiative source: August 2006 issue of North East Notes Employee Newsletter

Wellness In North East (WIN) BACKGROUND  Prior Year Benefit changes help mitigate increases in claim costs.  This allowed no increase in health premiums or benefit changes for  Mercer Survey of 1,557 companies expect Health Insurance costs to rise nearly 9% on average in Most companies plan on benefits changes so that the actual increase is expected to be just 6.7% for  To help control future cost, NEISD Health Plan will continue to focus on Prevention and Wellness.

Wellness In North East (WIN) BACKGROUND continued  August 2006 the District started a wellness initiative for employees.  A Wellness committee was established and met several times last year.  Committee named the initiative “Wellness in North East” (WIN).  One of the goals that came out of the committee was to gather, evaluate and provide data to determine baseline indicators to improve wellness.

Wellness In North East (WIN) ACTION  Employee Benefits collaborated with Health Services to put this Onsite Wellness RFP together.  This fall the Influenza inoculation will be administered.  In the spring the screenings that will be offered are Cholesterol (HDL,LDL and Triglycerides), Glucose, Blood Pressure, BMI (Body Mass Index), and HRA (Health Risk Assessment).  The Cholesterol and Glucose will be done by Veni- puncture instead of a finger prick to provide more accurate and detailed results which the employee can provide to their physician.

Wellness In North East (WIN) ACTION continued  The vendor will provide a detailed report to the employee.  Only summary data will be provided to the District.  The vendor will schedule each event with each location during work hours.  Vendor requires 50 participants per location. Some locations will be clustered based on participation.

Wellness In North East (WIN) EXPECTED RESULTS  Vendors estimate for a first time event, the participation rate would be 30 to 40%.  We will only pay for those employees that participate.  Industry surveys have shown that every dollar spent on wellness will generate an equal if not more savings in our Health Plan in addition to the goodwill.  Increase in employee and student attendance.