Impact of a comprehensive worksite wellness program on health risk, utilization, and health care costs.

In 2005, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City initiated a comprehensive worksite wellness program designed to impact employer culture and to assist healthy employees to stay at low risk and to reduce risk levels for those at moderate or high risk. Fifteen employer groups (9637 employees) participated in the A Healthier You (AHY) program for 3 consecutive years, 2006-2008. The results of health risk appraisals and biometric screening were used to evaluate program impact. Among the 4230 employees (44.0% of eligible employees) who completed health risk appraisals in all 3 years, 85.8% of individuals in the low-risk category in 2006 remained at low risk in 2008. There were also improvements in other risk categories, with 39.9% of those in the medium-risk category and 48.9% of those in the high-risk category in 2006 moving to a lower risk category in 2008. There were improvements in blood pressure control and total cholesterol, but no improvement in weight control. To assess financial and utilization outcomes, claims for the participating employer groups were compared to those for 7 employers (3800 employees) who did not participate in AHY in 2006-2008. Although none of the utilization measures was statistically different, the AHY groups had significantly smaller increases in both overall and emergency room costs per member per month. The AHY program now has over 180 employer groups, which will allow future evaluations to examine the impact of the program on a much larger population and to focus on the comparative effectiveness of different intervention strategies across implementations.