Anderson Family Wellness

Given the gigantic growth of wellness programs over the last two years, it was inevitable resistance would creep up among watchdog groups.

In Washington, lobbyists have spearheaded a push for Congress, the DOL and IRS to crack down on “punitive” wellness programs.

In particular, the groups seek to limit programs in which employees’ share of their healthcare costs are directly tied to their willingness to participate in a wellness program.

HIPAA’s non-discrimination rules prohibit employers from creating negative financial incentives for employees with health risks.

For example, you can’t raise someone’s premium share because he or she smokes. What you can do is offer a discount if someone completes a use of tobacco cessation program.

Reason –  the law does allow for financial incentives to staff members who willingly participate in wellness programs.

The watchdog groups seek greater regulation to make sure incentives and discounts are used only as rewards for healthy behavior, not as a thinly veiled form of discrimination against high-risk employees.

A recent survey finds nearly 42 percent of employers with 200 or fewer workers have some sort of disease management (DM) program.

That’s a gigantic increase from four years ago, when just 28 percent of smaller companys offered such programs.

There’s more to come, too. Fifteen% of respondents that didn’t currently have a disease management (DM) component to their medical plan hope to add one by 2011.

The highest-demand disease management (DM) programs are for diabetes, asthma and heart illness.

Source –  Small Business Benefits Survey, PDR Consulting Group, 9/1/2008.

Thinking about an obesity-related disease management program for your organization? Here’s what you need to know.

In order to be effective, the program must meet participants’ individual medical and psychological needs, not to mention your own organization’s need to control long-term health care costs.

How wide-reaching should the program be? After all, it doesn’t make sense to pay for services your staff members don’t want or can’t use.

Mary Beth Chalk of Resources for Living suggests that obesity programs can be broken down into four tiers of staff member need, from which your organization’s return on investment (ROI) can also be measured.

Tier 1 –  Education

Tier I staff members struggle with weight management problems but don’t need a health coach.  Instead, they could benefit from a self-directed program that provides weight-management related materials online, targeted mailing, and/or access to nurse call line.

How to measure ROI –  utilization. Do employees click on the Web site? Do they return to the site regularly? Do people  use the nurse line? Your program vendor ought to provide you detailed use stats.

Tier 2 –  Clinical supervision

If the staff member has been diagnosed as obese – a BMI  score over 30 is obese, over 35 is clinically obese – he or she’d do better working with a health coach in a clinically supervised program.

Three keys to getting maximum results –

1. Periodically have participants rate their relationship with their health coaches. Not everyone clicks, so a change may  be in order.

2. Coordinate your disease management (DM) care with your staff member assistance program (EAP)services. Reason –  Inability to control weight is often closely tied with mental health issues – and one can negatively affect the other.

The more closely your employee assistance program and obesity program managers work together, the higher the chance for success.

3. Beware of the fade-out effect. Many workers in weight-loss programs get off to a excellent begin and then fall back into old habits. People  should re-commit to the program after three sessions, four months and nine months.

To measure ROI, look at utlization, goal achievement and reduced presenteeism. of course, presenteeism is notoriously challenging to measure with reliable dollar figures. So how can you overcome that problem?

• Start with employees’ salaries. Let’s suppose one participant earns $40,000 per year.

• Ask staff members to self-report how energetic and productive they feel on the job, on a percentage scale. Then have supervisors estimate the employee’s productivity and split the difference. for this example, let’s assume it averaged to 50%.

• Collect scores again six months and one year into the program and then multiply the difference by salary. the result is your estimated productivity ROI.

In the example above, when the staff member earning $40,000 improves from 50% to 75% after one year, the productivity related ROI is $10,000.  

Tier 3 –  Medical management

At this level, the obese employee needs a higher level of care than a health coach can offer. the employee has chronic medical conditions related to obesity – like diabetes, high blood pressure, and/or sleep apnea – and needs a doctor case manager.

Particularly, the worker needs to set up regular visits with the physician and develop a treatment plan.

To measure ROI, start with the lower-tier criteria, then track quarterly and year differences in FMLA or compensated absences, and prescription drug costs. Then compare it to the per-participant cost of the obesity program.

Tier 4 –  Morbid obesity

At this level, the staff member has been diagnosed as morbidly obese – Body Mass Index over 40 – and is considered a potential candidate for gastric bypass surgery.

ROI is measured through ongoing health claims as well as the previous criteria.

Create a culture of wellness within your organization

Create Exemplary Management Support

In the most successful Wellness Programs, upper-level managers lead their organizations by example. and they work to ensure that the management structure not only allows, but actively encourages their employees to participate.

Organize a Wellness Advisory Team

Wellness committees serve as the eyes, ears, arms and legs of the program, representing coworkers ideas and concerns, and helping reshape the organizational culture toward health.

Conduct an Assessment of Financial and Human Assets and Liabilities

Successful Wellness Programs are built upon a foundation of information, including claims review, demographic analysis of the workforce, management and worker surveys, health risk data, history of organizational wellness, and health benefit plan design.

Create Clearly Stated Vision, Mission and Outcomes

Establish a clear vision of program direction, expectations and measures to answer the questions, “Where are we going and how’ll we know when we get there?”

Create a Robust and Strategic Wellness Program

A multi-component plan should consist of strategically created and implemented awareness, lifestyle change, and supportive environment programs, in addition to policies and activities that target appropriate health risk behaviors and needs of the employees.

Identify an Incentive and Reward Strategy

Incentives show the organizational commitment to the program and motivate person to participate. Incentives vary commonly from program to program, but can include such things as time off, reduction in medical insurance premiums or co-pays, cash incentives, discounts to health clubs, free pedometers, etc.

Communicate to Employees

Your program ought to be simple and concise, use an identifiable brand, and rely on a variety of media to communicate with staff members and managers.

Evaluate Outcomes

Evaluate program participation, satisfaction levels and behavioral change. You might want to track the number of workers’ compensation claims, productivity, turnover morale and absenteeism.

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Wellness Program – Management Support.

Create Exemplary Management Support

Goal –  A Wellness Program established into the organization’s culture.

Focus –  Develop support and excitement for the program from all levels of the corporation –   upper-level management, mid-level management, and grass-roots staff members.

Obtaining  senior management’s buy-in is essential to launching an effective program. the staff members must understand that management is supportive of the wellness program.

Actions –

Develop an Upper-Level Management Executive Team to determine high-level decisions – positions that ought to be included are the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Communications Officer, and other appropriate division-level managers and program professionals, as necessary.

The Upper-Level Management Executive Team will –

• Communicate to all levels of management about the program and drive the integration of the Wellness Program as a part of the corporation culture.

• Ensure that organizational resources are available for program planning and implementation.

• Be certain to encourage employees to participate and to assist in “recruiting” other employees, get the momentum going, and keep it growing.

• Share success stories within the company, and continue to raise the perceived value of participation.

Organize a Wellness Advisory Team

Goal –  Create a working committee that consists of workers and essential functional parts of the organization.

Focus –  to assist in reshaping the organizational culture to support employee-wellness activities by serving as messengers and supporters for the program.

Wellness Advisory Committees serve as an essential part of the infrastructure of your Wellness Program. the team members are the eyes, ears, arms, and legs of the program.

They represent their peers by sharing ideas and concerns about the wellness program.

Actions –

The Wellness Advisory Committee will –

• Make certain to work with  executive management and the Wellness Program coordinator in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the program.

• Create methods to enhance the acceptance and success of the activities of your Wellness Program by encouraging employee ownership of the program.

• Hold periodic meetings to keep the committee informed of upcoming plans and events and to provide feedback to the program coordinator about their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, and those of their coworkers.

• Recommend policy and environmental changes that are aimed at bettering the health and safety of employees.

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Wellness Program – Vision and Mission.

Goal –  Create a baseline of information and identify human and organizational needs.

Focus –  Review a selection of information to better understand past and current conditions regarding health-care utilization, organizational culture, demographic overview, and health-promotion initiatives.

Data collection plays an important role in planning, monitoring, and reviewing  a wellness program. It’ll also set the baseline for continued and future examinations of program efficiency, effectiveness, and feasibility.

Actions –

• Claims review (health care, pharmaceutical) –

• What have been the 10 most expensive major disease categories in each of the past five years? What are the number of claims and dollars compensated for each?

• What have been the 10 most expensive therapeutic classes of drugs in each of the past five years? What are the number of claims and dollars paid for each?

• What have been the 10 most frequently prescribed and filled therapeutic courses of drugs in each of the past five years? What are the number of claims and dollars paid for each?

• Demographic analysis of employee population (may include dependents) –

• List your number of workers, by gender, for each of the past five years and the percentages of males and females by age groups.

• Think about any other factors that might have affected the health of your workers and their use of the health-care system.

This may include mergers, acquisitions, workplace trauma, employee strikes, layoffs, early retirement offers, etc.

Management survey –

• Conduct surveys of mid-level management to understand their concerns and measure their level of interest and buy-in.

• Employee-interest survey –  Gather information to find out what the staff members want and to measure the level of participation, satisfaction, and “success” of any previous activities.

Risk data (health-risk assessments) –

• is there any data from health-risk appraisals over the past five years?

Participation in similar activities –

• List and describe all wellness programs that have been implemented over the past five years, including participation rates.

Design of the health plan, and anticipated changes –

• Have there been any meaningful changes in the health plan’s design in each of the past five years, like a change from an health maintenance organization to a PPO, increased co-payments or deductibles, or increased employee contributions?

Create Clearly Stated Vision, Mission and Outcomes

Goal –  Establish a clear vision of program direction, expectations, and measures.

Focus –  Setting a vision, mission, objectives and objectives to keep your Wellness Program focused toward its desired outcomes. It will answer the questions, “Where are we going?” and “How’ll we know when we get there?”

Actions –

• Identify two to five obviously announced goals. Be sure that your program is capable of having an impact in the area desired, and be sure that you are capable of measuring that impact.

Example Goal –  Staff Members having access to healthier food options

• Establish two to five measurable goals that specifically state what your program is going to accomplish, by when, how, and how it will be measured.

Example Objective –  Modify all vending machines to include 50 percent healthful food options.

• Identify a few activities that’ll help you achieveyour objective. Activities are very specific.

Example Activity –  Make sure to work with vending machine owners to identify healthy food options and restock with 50% of items that are healthier food options.

• Identify who is going to do what, by when, and what resources are needed.

Example Detail –  the Program coordinator will contact XXX Vending Corporation by September 30.

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Wellness Program Incentives.

Develop a Comprehensive and Strategic Wellness Program

Goal –  A robust Wellness Program plan.

Focus –  Development of a plan that consists of a selection of awareness, lifestyle change, and supportive environment program, policies, and activities that will target risk behaviors, needs, and interests of employees.

Your Wellness Program should provide an integrated, strategic approach specific to the needs, objectives, and culture of your organization, designed throughout an annual cycle.

It’ll be important to review and revise existing policies governing such areas as use of tobacco, vending machines, and the staff cafeteria. Also, it is useful to examine what corporate wellness or health-promotion activities are offered under your existing health-benefit plan.

Actions –

• Create activities based on your program goals and the specific needs of your workers. Focus on those topics that are of greatest interest to your workers and the greatest needs of your company, in that order. Prevent topics with narrow appeal.

• Keep it simple. Design the program so it’s easy for the participants to understand and track. Let workers focus their learning efforts on their own behavior, not on the rules and regulations of the program.

Additionally, simplify the program administration. Let individuals  record their own activities when possible; create a mixture of self-reported activities along with verified activities.

• Integrate a combination of activities to include awareness, educational, and behavior elements. Link the activities throughout the year to allow for desired behavior repetition.

• Choose activities that every employee can participate in.

Examples –

• Challenges –  Activities that focus on practicing a desired behavior and continue for 4-8 weeks and focus on specific topics (such as exercise, nutrition, or stress management).

• Learning experiences (seminars, videos, classes) –  One-time activities that last for a relatively short time and focus on a specific topic; these can precede “challenge activities” to prepare participants for behavior change.

• Behavior changes (like smoking cessation) –  Interventions may or may not be offered at the workplace; individuals must be encouraged to make lifestyle changes that they wanted to make even without the incentive.

• Disease management (support and education groups for diabetes and hypertension) –  These could  be provided or supported by the company through disease-management vendors, or by community, health, or religious organizations.

• New skills (first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation) –  These might  be provided or supported by the business, or by community, health, or religious organizations.

• Screenings, wellness assessments, physical exams –  A wellness assessment provides the corporation with aggregate data that could be used in program planning and investigation; preventive screenings and physical exams could be encouraged by awarding credits to employees.

• Program support (membership or leadership in wellness committee or challenge team) –  Reward those who work with you to help make your Wellness Program a success.

• Community events –  Reward participation in events like the Heart Walk or March of Dimes Walk; limit the number of these events that could be counted toward the annual total, and be selective about which events you allow to be counted.

Develop an Incentive Strategy

Goal –  to motivate and reward employee participation and completion.

Focus –  Create a sense of interest in participation and completion of wellness activities.

Providing incentives and rewards will send an important message to the employees that the organization is committed to bettering their health and will share the rewards that these changes will bring. It also plays a meaningful role in exciting person to participate.

Actions –

• Identify through staff members what incentives they value most.

• Identify what incentives the organization can provide.

• Integrate your incentives into your benefits strategy.

• Ensure that every participant who achieves a goal receives some recognition.

• Offer participation incentives.

• Avoid offering incentives for the “best” or the “most.”

• Avoid rewards for biometric changes.

• Use incentives to promote your Wellness Program, through logos and branding.

Examples –

Paid time off, reduction in medical insurance premiums or co-pays, cash incentives, discounts to health clubs, free pedometers, etc.

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Wellness Program Communication.

Goal –  Increase awareness of and participation in the Wellness Program.

Focus –  Promote the Wellness Program to workers to encourage participation in activities and benefits.

A well-designed communications strategy is paramount to successful program awareness and participation. Even a “world class” program design won’t succeed when nobody knows that it is available or how to get involved.

Employees who don’t get involved in the program should be doing so because they choose not to participate, not because they didn’t know about how, when, or where to participate.

Actions –

• Conduct a Resources and Communications Audit to identify internal and external resources available to support your Wellness Program, in addition to knowing how information will be disseminated.

• Keep the program simple and concise –  easy to read about, understand, and act upon.

• Build the brand; be certain it’s something that workers can identify with. Add the brand to T-shirts, water bottles, mouse pads, stress balls, etc.

Use a variety of media –

• Print –  pamphlets, fliers, posters, banners, paycheck inserts, newsletter articles, bulletin boards, literature racks, post cards.

• Electronic – Web, intranet, e-mail, closed-circuit TVs, sign lines, audiovideo productions.

• Staff meetings and organization events; word of mouth.

• Use existing channels of communication – what works best in your company – and make certain to know about all points of contact and systems of distribution.

Timing for communications –

• Prior to activity to develop awareness and to educate.

• During activity to stimulate participation.

• After an activity to report results.

• Between activities to maintain momentum and interest.

Consistency of communications –

• Use branding; maintain a consistent look, feel, and tone of messages.

• Maintain this consistency throughout the program.

Surveys and forms –

• Collect information.

• Disseminate information.

Studies show that untargeted health-promotion campaigns have little long-term impact.                  

Chronic conditions, which rob individuals and families of their health and happiness, represent major costs to corporations in the form of health-care and disability costs, lost productivity, and absenteeism.                  

Wellness Programs should address risky behaviors that can help your workers eat healthier, increase their level of exercise, help reduce stress, lower blood pressure (BP) and cholesterol, and quit tobacco use. Wellness programs should focus on assisting workers achieve and maintain their optimal health status.

Extensive worksite-health programs focused on changing lifestyle behavior have been shown to yield a $3 to $6 return on investment for each dollar invested. It takes about three to five years after the initial program investment to realize these savings.

Ninety-three percent of U.S.  corporations offer some kind of health-promotion program for their workers, but is it the right type?

Main Types of Wellness Programs

Programs focusing on disease management. These programs monitor and treat specific diseases. Illness management follows the 80/20 rule –  80% of health-care costs are spent on 20% of workers.

Illness management is announced to have a $7 to $10 return on investment within a year. the 20% of workers requiring the greatest medical expenditures today are usually different 20% who will cause the greatest health expenses a year or two down the road.

Programs focusing on health enhancement and risk management. These programs focus on lifestyle behavior change, and offer a $3 to $6 return on investment within two to five years, according to a 2004 report issued by the National Company Group on Health.

It’s important to note that a $3 to $6 return on an entire staff member population produces a higher sum savings than does disease management.

Good Data Drives Good Company Decisions

• Based on more than 120 scientific research studies, the National Business Group on Health reported that, within five years of program implementation, overall benefit-to-cost ratios (return on investment) of –

• $3.48 in decreased health-care costs per dollar invested.

• $5.82 in reduce rates of absenteeism per dollar invested.

The Facts Speak for Themselves – Wellness Helps Reduce Costs

• A 2003 analysis of one big U.S.  business found that simply helping staff members control their blood pressure alone can save $547 per individuals per year.

• Johnson and Johnson claims to have saved $38 million in health-care costs for its employees between 1995 and 1999 by promoting healthful lifestyles.

Health expenses lowered $224 per worker per year (averaged over four years), and this rate improved over time. the corporation found most benefits in the third and fourth years after program initiation.

• A 2004 University of Michigan study of 23,500 General Motors staff members showed that nonexercising staff members claimed at least $100 more per year in health-care costs than exercisers.

The study  also announced that obese, sedentary employees who began exercising at least twice a week decreased their costs by an typical of $500 a year.

• the Washoe County School District in Nevada estimated that, in a single year, it spent $300,000 on direct costs associated with obesity and $1 million for gastric-bypass surgeries. It instituted a weight-loss program that paid employees $10 per pound lost, up to 25 pounds.

Program participants missed three fewer workdays per year, producing a cost savings of $15.60 per program dollar spent.

Staff Time                  

Building a successful Wellness Program requires staff time in addition to money. Some bigger organizations may spend 20 hours per week for three to six months preparing all the steps prior to launching a Wellness Program.                  

Corporation Costs                  

Monetary costs can fluctuate widely, depending on whether the corporation compensates all costs, the staff members pay all costs, or the costs are shared.                  

A 1992 study indicated that 28 percent of corporations spent $5 or less per employee, and 19 percent spent between $6-10 per employee.                  

The Wellness Council of America estimates the cost per employee to be between $100 and $150 per year for an effective wellness program that produces a return on investment of $300 to $450. A sample expenditure for various levels of programs include –                   

Program Type                  

A minimal (largely paper) program          $1 – $7         

A moderate program                   

A medium program with a few activities       $16 – $35            

A fairly extensive program             $36 – $75      

A very extensive, effective program       $76 – $112            

• the news isn’t encouraging. As reported by Business Week, family health-care premiums increased 49% from 2000 to 2004.

Another increase of 12-15 percent is expected in 2005. General Motors expects to spend $5.6 billion on health care costs in 2005, or 40 percent more than it earned in profits in 2004.

• More and more research shows that poor diet andphysical inactivity are major drivers of increases in health care costs for employers. the number of obese adults has doubled since the 1970s.

• the rise in obesity has a meaningful impact on health-care costs. on average, 2002 health-care costs for an obese individuals were $1,244 higher than for a individuals with a healthy weight.

• Obesity is causing rapid increases in type 2 diabetes and contributes directly to a 65% increase in diabetes treatment from 1987 to 2002. Nearly $1 of every $5 spent on healthcare in the USA is for a individuals with diabetes.

Treating employee healthcare as an investment, rather than a cost, can yield long-term dividends

• at least 50 percent of your organization’s health-care costs are driven by the lifestyle related behaviors of your employees, like use of tobacco, poor diet, and lack of exercise.

• In the past 10 years, the annual return on investment for Wellness Programs has been as much as $6 saved for every $1 spent, doubling the return on investment of earlier programs.

• the average reduction in health-plan costs, sick leave, disability costs, and workers’ compensation is more than 25 percent for well-designed Wellness Programs.

• Fit workers are more productive workers, with fewer sick days, fewer accidents, higher morale, and lower job turnover.

The concern for staff member wellness is an increasing trend for American business. Why? the link between staff member wellness and the bottom line is clear and consistent.

Companys who integrate wellness in their overall goals find they experience lowered absences, better morale, lowered health risks, and lowered health-care costs.

The purpose of this guide to is to encourage and help you launch your own Wellness Program. If you already have a program, but aren’t receiving the results you expected, perhaps some ideas and best practices in this toolkit will help you and your employees reap the benefits of a healthier workforce.

At least 50 percent of health-care expenditures are lifestyle-related, and as a result, potentially preventable. Yet despite the $5,000 an typical employer spends on health care per worker each year, most employers are spending less than 5 percent of that on medical testings and prevention.

The most extensive meta-evaluation of Wellness Program studies shows something very exciting! It shows that Wellness Programs are not only effective at helping to reverse the rising spiral of health-care costs, but these programs are also becoming more effective. the typical cost-benefit ratio has increased from 1 – 3 for earlier programs to 1 – 6 today.

Simply put, the average reduction in health-care costs, sick time, disability costs, and workers’ compensation is more than 25 percent for well designed programs.

Corporate wellness provides a long-term approach for assisting keep workers well. the single most vital thing you can do for your workers is to start a Wellness Program now.

Health coaching to facilitate the promotion of healthful behavior and achievement of health-related goals

Coaching has become acceptable to both company and person to help improve performance, manage stress and achieve work and personal objectives. Yet very few papers have been published with a specific focus on health and coaching.

This article highlights the possible role of coaching to facilitate the promotion of healthy behaviors and to help individuals achieve their health-related objectives.

Introduction to Health Coaching

The practice of personal, family, health, life, company, sports, performance and executive coaching has grown substantially since the early 1990s (Cockerill 2002, Fournies 2000, Neenan and Palmer 2001, Parsloe and Wray 2000, Peltier 2001).

Although the term “coach” has been borrowed as a metaphor from sport, it’s now applied to the personal and work domains. Thus the term “coaching” has entered into the public psyche beyond the sports pages of the national newspapers and is becoming usually accepted as beneficial to its recipients.

It can even be seen as trendy having your own personal life coach. Whereas, in the United Kingdom, there is still a stigma attached to seeing a counsellor or psychotherapist.

What’s health coaching?

There are many definitions of coaching. Four are summarized below –

1. Health coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is assisting them to learn rather than teaching them – a facilitation approach (Whitmore 1992, based on Gallwey, a tennis specialist).

2. Health coaching – Directly concerned with the immediate improvement of performance and development of skills by a form of tutoring or instruction – an instructional approach (Parsloe 1995).

3. Health coaching – the art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of another – a facilitation approach (Downey 1999).

Psychologists have developed another variation –  

4. Health coaching psychology is for enhancing wellness and performance in personal life and work domains with normal, non-clinical populations, underpinned by models of coaching grounded in established adult learning or psychological approaches (adapted Grant and Palmer 2002).

It can probably be assumed that these definitions ought to reflect the nature of coaching as practised by many practitioners.

Hence the key aspects of coaching, depending upon the model of coaching being applied, appear to include enhancing wellness, learning, facilitation, tutoring, instruction, development of skills and bettering performance. In addition, coaching is generally goal and solution focused (Grant 2001).

Health Coaching

Similar to health education experts, ordinarily the coach takes an active and directive role. Typically, the coach helps the coachee to achieve their goals by facilitating the learning process.

If “health coaching” or “coaching for health” is the focus, the coach might help to educate the coachee on specific health-related topics and subsequently support them in achieving

Health Coaching –  Practice Briefing

Health coaching to facilitate the promotion of healthy behavior and achievement of their health-related goals. as the term coaching is becoming acceptable to the public, the theory of health coaching can be more favourably received by a patron group in contrast to attending a health education lecture.

An established health-related specialist body, the Institute of Wellness and Education, provides a definition of wellness and health education in their constitution –

The practice of wellness and health education may  be described as the organisation and execution of the influences affecting the environment, as well as individual knowledge, attitudes and behavior, in matters concerning health with a view to enabling communities and individuals to maintain and promote personal and community health and well-being, together with a proper acceptance and use of the health and medical services available. (IHPE 2002)

This definition doesn’t conflict with the general principles of the coaching approach, although its focus is on health and it can also be at the community level. This would be similar to stress or stress management coaching that is now available.

The International Stress Management Association (UK) has recognized the practice of this form of coaching for a number of years. It may be argued that stress management training and stress management coaching comes underneath the umbrella of the health education field.

Another professional body, the Association for Coaching (2003), includes both stress management coaching and health coaching on its website as “Speciality Coaching’.

Thus the term “health coaching” is entering into citizens awareness, although not necessarily among mainstream health education or promotion specialists.

Within the field of health, papers have been published on behavioral counselling which has been used to educate patrons with coronary heart disease (Steptoe et al 1999). Intriguingly, the counselling is active and directive in nature and takes an educational approach which could be more accurately described as instructional coaching.

A tentative definition of health coaching is given below –

Health coaching is the practice of health education and wellness within a coaching context, to enhance the wellness of individuals and to facilitate the achievement of their health-related objectives.

This definition attempts to link health education and promotion to the key elements of coaching.

Psychological Blocks to Change

Due to the personal nature of coaching it could include tackling the health-related psychological blocks to change which can be challenged in the individual or group coaching session.

These cognitive or attitudinal blocks to change may be divided into Health Inhibiting Thinking (HITs) and Health Enhancing Thinking (HETs).* Cognitive techniques like Socratic questioning may be used to help a client to modify their thinking.

Health Coaching –  Final Thoughts

With the increasing interest in coaching, the introduction of “health coaching” or “coaching for health” might have an appeal across different generations.

However, there’s a lack of published research that underpins the effectiveness of health coaching. Although many models of coaching exist (Bluckert 2003), the application of models to health coaching which take an educational approach, like cognitive-behavioral or multimodal, might provide promising results (Neenan and Palmer 2001, Palmer et al 2003).

In our modern and hectic lives filled with the demands of family, work, and much more, it might seem challenging to tackle our wellness on our own.  

Many of us create objectives that seem beyond reach and we cannot seem to stick to a specific wellness program for an extended period of time.  

With the numerous struggles that prevent us from reaching our optimum individual wellness, many of us would welcome the assistance and guidance of a specialist wellness coach.  

A wellness coach is a trained expert who works with individuals to help them to reach their wellness goals by developing and starting personal wellness programs.  

A wellness coach is highly educated and typically maintains advanced degrees in areas such as Exercise Physiology, Occupational or Physical Therapy, Athletic Training, and Nutrition.  

A wellness coach sets achievable objectives for the client, holds them accountable, and acts as a guide, motivator, and support system for that individual.  They focus on behavioral change by using individually designed programs to meet the unique needs of the client while offering creative solutions to help them achieve their objectives.  

In order to fully understand the role of a wellness coach it is important to understand the various factors that involved in overall wellness.  The five major components of wellness are health risks, physical activity, stress management, weight management, and nutrition.  

A wellness coach focuses on each of these areas of wellness while meeting the specific needs of the patron whether they’re trying to lose weight, get in shape, reduce stress, or quit smoking.  

They evaluate a person’s needs based on a highly scientific study known as a Health Risk (Assessment|Appraisal} .  After a wellness coach has determined the specific needs of the patron, he or she is able to create the wellness program, set achievable goals for that individual, and monitor them while they reach success.  

Wellness coaches focus on physical health in addition to mental and emotional health for create a balance in the patron’s life.  They not only work on assisting the patron with their current wellness issues, but they assist the patron to maintain their individual health by creating future goals in their wellness program.  

Every individual has unique needs and time constraints that require attention in different ways.  A wellness coach provides convenience with their services by working with clients in a selection of ways.  

The customer and coach may use telephone meetings, e-mails and instant messaging (electronic coaching), face-to-face interactions, or a combination of these various forms of communication.  

Although electronic coaching is becoming the most well-liked method due to its lower cost and efficiency, each patron may choose the method or methods will work best for them.  

The wellness coach is available 24 hours a day through web-based communication to make it even more convenient for the patron to reach his or her goals.  

Wellness coaches offer the kind of assistance that fits the needs of each customer for make it easier for the customer to embrace their personal wellness program.  

Based on the convenience, knowledge, and assistance that is offered by a wellness coach, it’s easy to see why more individuals  are taking advantage of these coaches to assist them in achieving their ultimate wellness goals.