Fit bits, jawbones, Fuel Bands, oh my! There’s a new device every day claiming to be the latest and greatest in healthy lifestyle management. The truth? They’re not.
Wearable wellness devices will not prevent someone from a diabetes diagnosis nor will they save your company millions of dollars in high-cost claims. Not by themselves, anyway.
Why invest in this technology? It’s simple – you need to do any and everything to get your population healthy. When combined with proven and consistent methods of engagement, wearable wellness devices are a fantastic way to help improve your company’s health. And this is important. Your organization’s population health is directly related to your organization’s financial health. The soaring costs of prescriptions and procedures related to preventable diseases are growing exponentially. Spending on specialty drugs alone in 2012 was around $87 billion in the US. That number is estimated to quadruple by 2020, reaching about $400 billion.
So what’s a company to do? Anything and everything. It’s time to jump on the wellness device bandwagon…if you haven’t already. Here are the three reasons why wellness trackers are important that no one is telling you.
- They’re mainstream.
These things have been around for years and they aren’t going anywhere. They are still around and still selling like Hatchimals. The price spectrum runs the gamut from $3 pedometers at big-box retailers to fitness trackers built into a year-long wellness plan with a fixed PEPY (per employee per year) rate. They aren’t going anywhere because people use them, they understand them and they are an acceptable way for people of any age to stay in touch and engaged with their activity status.
- Accountability is king.
Regardless of how comprehensive your wellness plan is or how rich your insurance plan is, the moment will likely come when you have to tell your employees that premiums are going up. Enter – wellness tracker. Coupled with a great communication campaign, wellness trackers have proven to be a great way for employees to hold themselves personally accountable. And many app based platforms offer sharing options, helping to increase accountability amongst the team as a whole. When employees are actively engaged, health may improve. And a healthy company equals lower premiums.
- It’s easy.
What we have here is a Grade-A “easy button”. You’re giving your employees an all-in-one tool to accumulate, track and act on their health information. The next step is to plan events and competitions, push disease prevention campaigns and do some real life work for your company’s wellness initiative. But first, start a grass-roots campaign to get your team moving… and let a little device tell your team the news that you don’t want to. “It’s time to get healthy.”
