Wellness panel to boost health of Maine employees

Editor’s Note: The following is the 11th in a 12-part series of columns from Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Move & Improve is an outreach program, promoting healthful lifestyles for Maine people, of EMMC’s Community Wellness Service.

You have been Moving & Improving now for almost three months! In addition, as you head down the homestretch, you are feeling better about your aerobic fitness, muscular strength and flexibility, and have dropped a pound or two.

But how do you maintain this new sense of fitness? You are feeling energized now, but keep up your focus and commitment, to maintain the Move & Improve philosophy year round will be challenging. Wouldn’t it be great if your employer did more to help you maintain your fitness and improved health habits?

Well, there is good news on the horizon, because your employer will be getting a big push in that direction soon. The Bangor Region Wellness Council is a new project of the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber board has enthusiastically endorsed this effort as an important step in improving employee health and cutting health care costs.

The Chamber board also believes that if the Bangor regional business community can document improvements in employee health status, it will earn the “Well Region” designation from WELCO. This designation has the potential to aid in the attraction of new businesses to the area. The project is about employee health enhancement, wellness, insurance cost reduction and economic development. This is what we call Moving and Improving on the part of the business community!

A collaboration of individuals have formed a steering committee to plan the effort, including representatives from the Bangor Daily News, Northeastern Log Homes, Dunlap Insurance, the University of Maine and Eastern Maine Medical Center. They have reviewed published research that clearly demonstrates the direct correlation among poor employee lifestyle choices, decreases in health status and well-being, and resulting increases in insurance costs. For instance, one study demonstrates that a smoker on the average costs an employer $1,300 more than a nonsmoker.

Another recently published study also demonstrated that the Bangor region is not particularly healthy. Rates of smoking and obesity are generally 20 to 50 percent higher than comparable communities in southern Maine. Containing health care cost is a challenge for small businesses, where even one employee’s poor health might significantly affect the bottom line. With such startling statistics, it has not been hard for the steering committee to get the attention of the Chamber board, and the business community. Everyone recognizes that it will not be an easy task to generate positive shifts in the health status of an entire region, but the business community recognizes that it must do its part by initiating the Bangor Region Wellness Council.

Once in place, the Wellness Council will provide businesses assistance in reshaping company policies and benefit plans, developing educational programs and incentives for behavior modification, and providing health screening and other health enhancing activities. The Wellness Council will use the “best practices” for employee health promotion that have been developed by companies nationwide. Consultants from the Wellness Councils of America in Omaha, Neb., will assist in planning and implementing these best practices.

If your company has an interest in going beyond Move & Improve and creating a healthy work environment 365 days a year, call the Chamber at 947-0307. Let them know you want to be at the kickoff later this year.

Jerry Whalen is vice president of business development at Eastern Maine Medical Center and a Move & Improve participant. For more information, contact Move & Improve coordinator Elanna Farnham at 973-7245 or efarnham@emh.org.