National Summit to Address Health and Workplace Productivity Link

Newswise — The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) and the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI) today announced that they will jointly convene a national summit of experts to address the relationship between health and workplace productivity on Nov. 5-7. Participants at the summit, to be held at Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, will discuss ideas aimed at helping the nation's employers and other payors better understand the link between health and productivity and implement programs designed to enhance worker health and prevent occupational health exposures. Funding for the summit has been provided by sanofi-aventis.

The event, titled the Workforce Health and Productivity Summit, is part of larger efforts by both ACOEM and IBI to raise awareness of a concept known as health and productivity management (HPM). Employers use HPM to lower health risks among employees, reduce the burden of illness and health-related costs, and improve productivity and the quality of life for workers.

Health and productivity managers measure workforce health and productivity levels to determine true health-related costs and the impact of poor health on productivity, then design prevention- and management-based programs to address their needs. Together, ACOEM and IBI are leaders in HPM education, measurement and research, offering a variety of programs and resources to help employers understand and utilize the HPM concept.

More than 30 national thought leaders, representing employers, physicians and healthcare providers, consumer groups, academia and government will participate in the summit. Following two days of discussions, they will issue consensus recommendations outlining steps that should be taken to better manage health-related productivity, ensure a healthy workforce and broaden understanding of these concepts.

The two organizations cite the aging American workforce and the rise of chronic disease among all workers as key factors driving the need for adoption of HPM in the workplace. Employers spend an average of $14,000 per year in health costs for each employee and their dependents; with 135 million employees in American industries, that amounts to nearly $2 trillion in spending. Some studies suggest that as much as 75 percent of medical spending goes toward care for chronic conditions such as diabetes, depression and cancer.

HPM programs help employers more accurately determine which medical conditions have the greatest impact on overall productivity and then design strategies to help their employees fend off or better cope with these conditions. Studies show that many employers don't fully understand which conditions contribute the most to lowered productivity and thus make unwise strategic decisions " such as seeking to simply limit medical spending across the board.

To learn more about the Workforce Health Summit, call 847-475-1283. To learn more about other HPM initiatives by ACOEM and IBI, visit http://www.acoem.org or http://www.ibiweb.org.

About ACOEMThe American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) represents nearly 5,000 physicians specializing in occupational and environmental medicine. Founded in 1916, ACOEM is the nation's largest medical society dedicated to promoting the health of workers through preventive medicine, clinical care, disability management, research, and education. For more information, visit http://www.acoem.org.

About IBIIBI provides employers and their supplier partners with resources for proving the business value of health. As a pioneer, leader and nonprofit supplier of health and productivity research, measurement and benchmarking, IBI provides benefits performance analysis, practical solutions, and forums for information and education. IBI's programs, resources and expert networks advance understanding about the link between—and the impact of—health-related productivity on profitability. For more information, visit http://www.ibiweb.org.

About sanofi-aventisSanofi-aventis U.S., based in Bridgewater, NJ, and employing 16,000 people across the country, is part of a global pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, produces and markets innovative therapies that enhance people's lives. Its research and development efforts are focused on health care challenges in cardiology, oncology and internal medicine, as well as metabolic diseases, central nervous system disorders and vaccines. For more information, visit http://www.sanofi-aventis.com.