A smart Rx for employee health

A smart Rx for employee health -- OrlandoSentinel.com

Hotel magnate Harris Rosen has figured out where to invest in employee health, and has had it right for nearly a decade!

The key to employer investment in employee health is first identifying which employee health issues can save the employer money.

In the case of Rosen's Quality Inn International hotel, managing employees chronic medical conditions has delivered hard ROI. In the US, it is cost effective to manage someone's diabetes in order to avoid the expensive hospital costs associated with untreated disease.



While making sure an employee's diabetes is well managed is always a
good thing, and fosters employee satisfaction, the ROI in Canada is far
less, since the bill for the hospital costs falls to the government -
rather than the employer.

Canadian employers can also find ROI, they just have to look in the right place!

In Canada, the chief among the issues to look at are those which rob an employer of an employees' productivity. While most employers aren't set up to track health related productivity loss, the numbers (and potential ROI) is staggering.

Approx 1 in 27 or 3.68% of the US population (and likely a similar percentage in Canada) suffer from undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea. Employees with this condition simply cannot sleep enough at nightime to be fully productive at work.

By putting in place simple screening programs (even as simple as an online questionnaire) an employer can identify and address problems like OSA which syphon thousands of dollars of productivity per employee annually.

Technorati Tags: Healthcare ROI, Investing in Healthcare