HealthFitness Guides Incentives Strategy to Spark Participation in American Electric Power's Employee Health and Wellness Initiative New Issue Brief Highlights AEP program, Outlines Elements f...( $150 gift card...),Health

$150 gift card incentive offered to employees and spouses for completion of health risk assessment resulted in a 65% employee completion rate; participation is key to program success.

Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) August 1, 2008 -- Employers are increasingly using incentives as the carrot to engage employees in worksite health and productivity programs. A new issue brief from HealthFitness (OTC BB: HFIT) zeros in on the use of incentives to fuel participation in a new health and wellness program American Electric Power (AEP) launched in 2007 to lower health care costs and improve the productivity of the utility’s 21,000 employees.

When AEP took into consideration its aging workforce and the cost impact of poor health on both safety and productivity, the decision to begin a structured, fully developed health and productivity program was simple.

HealthFitness manages the AEP Wellness….Energy for Life program for the utility, which includes nearly 500 work sites across 11 states. The program includes health screenings, educational programs and fitness initiatives. Employees and their spouses who are at risk for chronic disease are also invited to take part in HealthFitness’s EMPOWERED® health coaching, which is delivered face-to-face, telephonically and over the Web. HealthFitness is a leading provider of employee health management programs. Managing more than 400 fitness centers globally, the company also offers a suite of health management services on-site, Web-based and telephonically.

“We consider HealthFitness to be a partner and a trusted advisor with us for the program,” said Curt Cooper, director of benefits for AEP. “We recognized early on that, while we’re very knowledgeable about providing electricity, we didn’t have the expertise we needed in the area of wellness. HealthFitness has the ability to provide us wi
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