Does self-care translate into healthier employees?
March 1, 1998 less than 1 minute read
Does self-care translate into healthier employees?
It depends on whom you ask
It’s a question that’s been around as long as self-care itself: You can demonstrate that employees will use emergency and outpatient care less frequently if they follow a self-care guide, but does that necessarily mean they will be any healthier?
Wayne Burton, MD, corporate medical director at First Chicago NBD, replies with a direct "No." The question that always comes up, he says, is that you don’t know whether the patient is just delaying necessary care.
"Years ago when mandatory second opinions were done, certain surgeries were denied," he recalls. "We found that down the line a high number of those surgeries were later performed. In other words, it demonstrated that second opinion programs did not save money."
How can you tell, then, whether your self-care program is improving employee health as well as the bottom line? "When you look at these [programs], you have to look at more than one year to see what the payback is," he says.
In terms of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts study, says Burton, "Another year after that would be ideal to see if changes continued in the population. You want to make sure the changes are real."
Noting the size of the population studied, however, Burton added that "It is so large, it’s impressive that they had statistically significant results."
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