Here's to your health: an innovative wellness program to reach the high-risk employee.

• Author: Prata, Kathleen

Since most employees today spend close to half their weekday waking hours at work, companies are taking steps to promote health and wellness at the worksite. Doing so not only can cut health-care costs, but also can promote a healthy bottom line through increased productivity.

Statistics show that as many as half of all illnesses are the result of unhealthy lifestyle habits, conditions which could have been prevented. And employer-paid health-care costs, which are directly affected by these illnesses, represent as much as 30 percent of all health-care expenditures. This expense is likely to increase as the age of the work force rises, unless employers take the lead and offer employees assistance to improve their lifestyles and kick unhealthy habits.

Hospitals throughout the state are working hand-in-hand with the business community to ensure the health and safety of the workforce. For example, Parkview Memorial Hospital in Fort Wayne developed the Health Sense program--a system enabling employers to encourage health and prevention among their employees and make that awareness ongoing.

Each month, focus is given to a specific health topic, in accordance with the national health calendar. For instance, January is National Back Health Month, April is Cancer Control Month and October is Family Health Month. Services such as back screenings, mammograms, pulmonary-function screens and stress-management classes are offered to support each month's theme.

"There's just a whole variety of services. It gives a lot of flexibility to fit the needs of both white-collar and blue-collar employers," says Beth Battell, vice president of Parkview Regional Outreach. She says most of the programs can be conducted on-site.

The cost varies. Parkview offers an all-inclusive program for $10 per employee to companies with under 100 employees; the price drops to $3 per employee for those with more than 1,000 workers. Components are priced individually: A health carnival costs $400, plus extras, and puzzle boards are $150 each.

To entice fence sitters, or even hard-core resisters, into the program, Health Sense incorporates incentives to promote employee participation. "If we're telling employers that we're going to save them money on their health-care costs, then we better be reaching those employees that we call the resisters or the stalwarts," Battell says.

Keltsch Pharmacy in Fort Wayne offers a drawing for gift certificates, product discounts and even a color...