For Memphis, Tenn.-based AutoZone, the largest retailer and distributor of automotive parts and accessories in the U.S., with locations in Puerto Rico, Mexico and Brazil, extending access to benefits and HR resource services was crucial. Reaching its 120,000 plus employees, affectionately known as “AutoZoners,” in over 6,700 stores became even more vital with the COVID-19 pandemic. The ability to communicate simply and easily with employees holding a variety of roles was key to record breaking numbers realized by the organization.

Green Circle Life’s comprehensive communication and engagement platform SmartFHR™ enabled the automotive retailer to prioritize workforce well-being, increase employee satisfaction and retention, and improve communication. SmartFHR™ aggregates all employee-facing human resources, wellness, and healthcare services. It operates as a single sign-on, interactive dashboard that’s accessible on-demand from any PC or mobile device.

Tech Drives AutoZone Benefits Engagement

AutoZone’s goal from the outset of its implementation of SmartFHR™ was to use it to help build a culture of health and well-being. The company wanted to create simple user experiences to drive employees’ benefits engagement and an integrated holistic wellness program while leveraging the latest technology. This would help the company differentiate itself in the marketplace, connect with AutoZoners anywhere and allow its employees to get the most out of company benefits.

SmartFHR, more than just a passive information repository, is an interactive behavioral change tool specifically designed to stimulate and reinforce the habitual, proactive engagement AutoZone sought. The healthcare platform made it simple for the auto parts company to share information with employees at any time and integrate it into their daily routines.

Decisions in areas like wellness, condition management, and benefits selection are essentially family driven. Green Circle Life prioritizes whole-family participation by giving family member access to all the resources and benefits provided by SmartFHR.

Green Circle Life delivers the ultimate engagement platform with extensive analytical capabilities on the backend. These include a benefits dashboard that contains all assistances in one place, tracks employees from enrollment to termination, provides details with a click, and uses a single-sign-on experience for everything AutoZone. SmartFHR™ also supplies a communication vehicle, which allowed AutoZone to provide messaging (extremely important during the pandemic) via the app.

Benefits of a HR Tech Connected Workforce

With the help of Green Circle Life’s SmartFHR, AutoZone was able to realize greater employee engagement of the company benefits, lower healthcare costs, and encourage fewer sick and disability days for those engaged. By successfully driving this benefits engagement, AutoZone revealed it also generated increased participation seven-fold compared to prior years, and helped achieve better wellness lifestyle activities and aide in the retainment and recruitment of employees.

Breaking down some outcomes:

• Healthcare cost savings. In 2020, more than 26,000 AutoZoners took part in wellness activities through this platform: among insured members there was a cost saving of $12 per member per month (PMPM) against a negative cost trend of (-2.6%). This showed a total return on investment of $3 per $1 in well-being program costs.
• COVID-19. While AutoZone attributed many factors to the company’s performance in managing the pandemic, it did distribute pandemic related guidance, education and communications through the well-being platform. In a COVID-19 cost analysis for 2020 and 2021, AutoZone had 1,839 fewer COVID-19 related claims than expected among the plan members.
• Recruiting and retentions value. In 2020, among wellness users, the attrition rate was 26%, whereas across the entire population that rate was 63%; and full-time and part-time retention was better when AutoZoners engaged with wellness activities. AutoZone also created a caring company image, which helps attract job candidates.
• Productivity, Reduced Absenteeism and Presenteeism. AutoZone has seen well-being improves productivity and profitability. One way to measure this value is through analysis of absenteeism (by measuring sick and disability time).Among disability benefits users in 2020: AutoZoners who used the well-being services had an average of 158 days off; among non-participants, there were an average of 191 days off. Looking at 2020 sick-leave data: among wellness feature users, sick time eligible people had on average 37.8 unused sick hours per user; among non-participants, sick time eligible people had that number as 33.8 unused sick hours per user. AutoZone did note it cannot be sure how much is attributable to wellness related savings but did say it calculated per $12 of hourly wage rate above resulted in over $1 million in cost savings.
• Improving conditions causing Metabolic Syndrome. AutoZone found a high prevalence of metabolic syndrome (a cluster of conditions that occur together, increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes) among members. AutoZone’s philosophy is early intervention improves future results and prevents potential costs. Results showed an average weight loss of 10.7 lbs. among weight-loss program participants; a decrease from 165 to 122 in blood glucose levels among diabetic users; and a decline from 132 to 119 in blood pressure levels among hypertensive users.

Green Circle Life, a Smarter Way, Toward Company Health

SmartFHR™ seamlessly integrates internally and externally managed systems enabling users to perform a range of tasks, including benefits enrollment, personnel record management, payroll, time and attendance, wellness programs, scheduling appointments, and even the managing of health records.

Green Circle Life is differentiated by its commitment to customization – clients can incorporate whichever services they choose to prioritize; they can utilize Green Circle Life’s native components or use the platform entirely as a more integrated point of access to existing systems and programs.

Through SmartFHR™, companies can push timely messages and content to individual employees, specific cohorts, or the entire enterprise driving participation in key programs it prioritizes. The platform features extensive analytical capabilities on the backend, and dramatically reduces the burden on internal human resources teams who no longer have to devote time and energy to repeat outreach and administrative efforts.

AutoZone, a leading auto parts retailer with more than 100,000 AutoZoners, is recognized for providing the highest quality experience to its customers. However, with high employee turnover, the company struggled to engage employees in wellness initiative that could result in a healthier workforce. Having employees spread across 6,000 locations throughout the U.S. and Mexico, most of whom do not have a computer or work email add to the engagement challenge. Green Circle Life (GCL) was asked to addresss these challenges and provide Wellbeing services for AutoZoners and their family members. As the participation grew exponentially, the next challenge was to measure ROI of such a program.

Solutions:

AutoZone and GCL collaboarated to develop a company-branded application ‘AutoZoners’ available via App and web to aggregate all communications, benefits, and services in one place. The AutoZoners App has become integral in presenting a “one-stop shop” type of experience. It provides AutoZoners access to HR services such as yearly open enrollment, information about company benefits including digital health and pharmacy cards, eligibility, and contact information, wellness programs and challenges, health data tracking, and one-on-one lifestyle coaching, as along with communication related to the company and other vendor offerings. Multi-channel, two-way, 24/7 communication allows AutoZone to interact with employees and family members at the time and through the mode that works best for them.

In the same service with wellness programming, the AutoZoners App also replaced traditional, separation of wellness and chronic condition programs. Health condition management and wellness offerings work best when used together to address unique user needs in a holistic way. GCL AutoZone employees and their family members with a range of health and wellbeing issues and provided them with consistent strategies and goal setting for lifestyle changes using the App and lifestyle coaching. GCL Health Partners were available for unlimited lifestyle coaching to AutoZoners and their family members; leveraging AutoZoner features such as the wellness assessment, health device integration to monitor health data and activities, and provide personalized health and wellness articles, digital coaching, wellness programing, and direct them to other vendor offerings to help them be successful. This approach helps AutoZoners and their family members stay engaged and ensures wellbeing is a top priority, ultimately helping to lower healthcare costs.

The success of any wellbeing program depends on frequent and consistent communication regarding wellness and preventive care. GCL used in-app, secure two-way messaging, bulletin board posts, text messaging, email, and push notifications to engage AutoZoners and their family members in the AutoZone health and wellbeing company culture. Prior to GCL’s additional channels for communications via the SmartFHR™ app, many AutoZoners were unaware of the robust company resources and services available to support wellness and chronic health conditions for both them and their families.

Engagement year over year has improved which has enabled AutoZone to leverage the App even more. Program enrollment has increased and participation in preventive health activities has grown. Though it is difficult to measure ROI related to health and wellness initiatives, GCL partnered with Aon and an internal HR team from AutoZone to build an evaluation model to measure the success of the program and verify results.

Results:

The collaborative team of GCL, AON, and AutoZone’s HR team outlined the following success measures:

• Healthcare Cost based ROI – Measured return of about $1 to $3 per dollar spent In 2020; Among 26,842 users of one or more features of AutoZoners wellbeing programs; 10,366 were plan members. There were 6,238 plan members from 2019 in 2020 with 1.1-million-dollar cost reduction which can be extrapolated to others. There were additional cost savings among engaged members. Additionally, 16,476 non-plan members used the service saving healthcare costs, though AutoZone had no healthcare costs for them.
• Metabolic Syndrome: Weight loss AutoZone has higher rates of obesity, diabetes and overall metabolic syndrome compared to national averages. 923 participant lost an average of 10.7 lbs. equal to over $1M in cost savings. There were also improvements in blood pressure and diabetes markers which led to more cost savings.
• Productivity: Absenteeism & Presenteeism There were 104 wellbeing service users who had on average 158 days of disability vs 347 non-users who had on average 191 days of disability leave for a saving of $330K. Exploring sick leave data, we see lower sick leave usage among engaged part-timers. It is also reported that happiness and wellbeing improvements result in greater profitability.
• Turnover: Recruiting and Retention Turnover among 26,121 participants who engaged with the App was 26% vs turnover among all AutoZoners which was 63%. This results in cost savings in hiring and training costs. Using AutoZone’s internal data, this equates to $3.3-million in cost savings per 1,000 AutoZoners retained.

This analysis was clearly demonstrate that while industry uses $1 to $3 number as a return on investment in wellness program, actual numbers here in this program are signitifantly higher when one factors in other cost savings from absenteeism and retention.

An integrated and comprehensive approach to manage employee wellbeing is key to improve employee health and reduce not only company healthcare costs but improves productivity by having fewer sick days and saves money by retaining people.

Challenges:

• Reaching more than 95,000 AutoZoners – employees – spread over 6,600 stores and service centers.
• Helping AutoZoners find and navigate company information and resources.
• Addressing multi-generational workforce preferences and priorities.
• Improving chronic condition management with integrated healthcare services and live counseling.
• Improving AutoZoner engagement and reducing turnover.
• Effectively communicating and engaging AutoZoners; and
• Controlling employer healthcare costs while improving health outcomes.

Solutions:

• Partnering with Green Circle Life to offer AutoZoners, a company branded app on Android and iOS devices as well as a web-based service.
• Deploying AutoZoners App as a productivity and convenience tool to encourage daily use.
• Replacing traditional wellness and condition management programs with personalized programs focused on individuals and their family’s needs to make lifestyle changes.
• Providing all HR services and benefits access with single-sign-on, anytime, anywhere access;and
• Offering multi-channel communication platform with bulletin board, messaging, email, text, reminders, push notifications, appointment setup and more.

Results:

• In 2019, more than 75,000 AutoZoners used the platform, averaging 5 logins per month per user.
• Over 90% of AutoZoners find the app easy to use and know how to find company resources.
• Health engagement increased by 90% in two years.
• Increased operational efficiencies with app based workflows eliminating paperwork.
• Increased preventive care and condition management participation; and
• Increased open rate for health and wellness and company communication as high as 55%.
• Reduced healthcare costs by 22% for individuals who participated in the disease management programs for the entire year.

Challenges

AutoZone, a leading auto parts retailer with more than 95,000 AutoZoners, is recognized for providing the highest quality experience to its customers. However, the company struggled with engaging AutoZoners as the workforce is spread geographically across 6,600 locations. Additionally, most AutoZoners did not have work environment like sitting at a desk – the typical work environment required AutoZoners to move around a store throughout the day. This led to a limited access to emails and intranet, eventually resulting in AutoZoners feeling disconnected with company communications, resources and culture.

Reaching such a large workforce effectively became a challenge for the executive and human resources (HR) team. Since there weren’t any universal channels for communications with the distributed workforce, many AutoZoners were unaware of what company resources were offered, where they should turn for resources and how to engage with them on an ongoing basis. Sharing corporate news with AutoZoners also was a difficult task for the executive team.

Additionally, the company faced high healthcare costs as well as multigenerational complexities as individuals had different preferences and priorities. Even though AutoZone offered comprehensive benefits, the overall workforce did not fully engage with them. Furthermore, there were many AutoZoners who faced certain health issues like diabetes and high blood pressure that were not receiving the assistance they needed to properly manage their conditions to live a healthy and productive life.

Overall, AutoZone’s HR team wanted a new approach to communicate benefits and to reengage their workforce in the company’s culture and healthy lifestyle.

Solutions

AutoZone collaborated with Green Circle Life to develop a company branded application and web-based service, ‘AutoZoners,’ to aggregate all benefits and services in one place. The AutoZoners app has become the central repository for all services, including all benefits and HR services, making the platform comprehensive, useful and convenient. It allows AutoZoners to access all services including but not limited to payroll, personnel records, internal job boards, company discount card, health savings account, 401(k) plan, wellness programs, chronic condition management programs, scheduling appointments, coaching and more.

Green Circle Life worked with AutoZone to provide a multi-channel delivery platform for communications. AutoZoners provides a communications hub with push notifications for immediate messaging and different channels of direct dialogue among AutoZoners and their management. Additionally, Green Circle Life enabled the platform to promote specific company announcements including the annual earnings, company videos, popup message with HSA account reminders, surveys and more. AutoZoners have phone support available to answer any service or benefits-related questions for paycheck, W-2, direct deposit issues to health and wellbeing of their families.

The platform gives AutoZoners 24-hour access to their company-provided services and any corporate announcements using a single-sign on as well as biometric authentication making it a streamlined process. AutoZoners is available for the families of AutoZoners to help drive further engagement and overall lifestyle changes.

The AutoZoners app also replaced traditional separate wellness and health programs with customized, integrated programs and services tailored to specific user needs. AutoZoners can select programs and configure the service for their goals and preferences. Green Circle Life identified high-cost, high-risk groups of AutoZoners who may struggle with chronic conditions and now provides them with consistent strategies for lifestyle changes through the app, and digital and live coaching. Those strategies include engaging with the Green Circle Life health and wellness coaching staff to complete a wellness assessment, using connected devices for vitals and activities, receiving education on their conditions, encouragement to join programs that will help them achieve their goals and monitoring their progress with vitals, digital coaching, lifestyle coaching, remote monitoring and more to help lower healthcare costs.

Results

The AutoZoners app expanded from a focus on wellness to a comprehensive HR benefits and services platform to give AutoZoners what they needed most. Over time they became more engaged and started using the app for many different purposes. AutoZoners consistently access the AutoZoners platform to view paycheck information, and personnel information, review benefits, order uniforms and see internal job openings. Since it is comprehensive and all company-provided resources are located on the platform, AutoZoners know exactly how to find their available resources and can view them easily on the HR and benefits dashboards. Removing the barriers from disjointed platforms was crucial; AutoZoners can find and use the benefits and HR service resources at the time and place that is best for them. In 2019, AutoZoners had more than 75,000 unique users averaging five logins per month per user.

Across the board, employee groups have found the app useful. 87% of store support center AutoZoners enrolled in the platform, as well as 87% of field management and 80% of field sales AutoZoners.

AutoZone created operational efficiencies to develop online processes for new hire onboarding as well as for AutoZoner Assistance Fund program. Prior to AutoZoners, paperwork was done manually and now AutoZoners can easily do it online for a streamlined and convenient experience.

Additionally, AutoZone can measure the effectiveness of its communication and track how many AutoZoners are engaging and using its resources, which allows the company to focus its attention on other areas that may need assistance. The team found a significant increase in open and engagement rates on messages, including open rates as high as 55% for newsletters and 27% for preventive care emails. Through this, the multigenerational workforce concerns were addressed by promoting personalized and tailored health and wellness programs and assistance. These programs have resulted in a projected health care cost reduction of 4% as well as a year-by-year increase in preventive care participation. For individuals participating in the disease management program their actual healthcare costs were signtificantly lowered resulting in a savings of 22%. Overall health and wellness engagement participation increased by 90% from 2017 to 2019.

AutoZone can now help AutoZoners in the way that is best for them providing a channel that is mobile first, delivering all resources and announcements straight to AutoZoners. This has increased workforce participation in education and engagement with company resources and announcements. In a recent survey over 90% of the users found the app easy to use and navigate. AutoZoners is enabling AutoZone to provide a distinctive offering in the retail space compared to many other employers and competitors, increasing AutoZoner satisfaction and reducing turnover rate.

Matthew C. Harmon, VP, Benefits, Compensation and HR Systems at AutoZone, said, “Watching how AutoZoners increasingly engage with the app year after year is a testament to how integral the platform is to our company culture. AutoZoners have become increasingly educated and knowledgeable about our company benefits, services, resources and announcements, and they have found value in it, not because someone told them they should use it, but because they legitimately see the value in it. Without Green Circle Life, we would not be able to communicate with and engage our AutoZoners effectively, while also developing a return on investment on our benefits and lowering healthcare costs.”

Challenges:

• Creating a seamless, easy-to-use workflow for healthcare providers to collect samples, manage screenings, distribute and share results and coach patients on how to improve their health;
• Engaging client-employees to improve their health by utilizing modern healthcare technology to make meaningful behavioral changes to lead healthier lives; and
• Reducing healthcare costs for employers, operational costs for the health system and improving productivity for both by eliminating tedious paper-based processes.

Solutions:

• The Green Circle Life (GCL) Platform with mobile app is a flexible multi-purpose service designed for employers and health systems to improve the health and wellbeing of employees.

Results:

• Created an efficient, seamless and paperless workflow for healthcare providers to schedule and conduct events and registration such as wellness assessments and on-site biometric screening;
• Utilized a digital workflow to distribute and share healthcare results with patient-employees to utilize throughout their lifetime;
• Conducted follow up reviews and coaching to improve overall health and wellness;
• Produced population analysis to guide employers and employees;
• Reduced overall employer healthcare costs and improved health system productivity.

Challenges

Founded in 1968 as the Hospital Corporation of America, HCA is currently one of the largest private health systems worldwide with more than 178 hospitals and 119 surgery centers located across 20 states and the United Kingdom. Each of these facilities is locally managed and plays an integral role working with local employers to provide healthcare benefits for employees and their families.

With more than 28 million patient encounters each year, including 8.6 million annual emergency room visits, the HCA sought a way to better engage local employers and give their employees more control over their healthcare, thus encouraging them to make meaningful behavioral changes to lead healthier lives. At the same time, local employers sought a way to better communicate with their employees about their healthcare benefits and reduce overall healthcare costs, improve productivity and reduce absenteeism/presenteeism.

The HCA’s North Florida Panhandle network was in need of a solution that would help its healthcare providers improve how they schedule on-site events, register participants and streamline the collection of medical samples; conduct biometric and wellness screenings; digitally distribute and share medical results and coach patients on how to improve their healthcare.

Solutions

The HCA’s North Florida Panhandle Florida network engaged with Green Circle Life as its health and wellness screening solution partner to improve how its medical professionals engage and communicate with client-employees. Using the GCH Platform to create a seamless and efficient workflow, the North Florida HCA was able to eliminate tedious paper-based processes and conduct biometric and wellness screenings more efficiently. The North Florida HCA also utilizes that same platform to share results with patients, further eliminating need for mailing and redundant processes or unnecessary delays. The test results seamlessly flow from the hospital MEDITECH Electronic Health Record (EHR) platform to the GCH Platform in real-time for employee-patients and nurses to review and receive coaching and additional guidance.

Furthermore, the North Florida HCA utilized the GCH platform to communicate and coach clientemployees on how to make meaningful behavioral changes to lead healthier lives. The platform supports clinical aspects of chronic condition management and provides users’ access to qualified medical professionals. Using GCH live services, employees and their families can engage with a team of dedicated clinicians and health partners on their health and enable remote monitoring which improves overall compliance with treatment plans and protocols for better outcomes.

Results

Improved Operational Efficiencies & Enhanced Patient Experience
After deploying the GCH Platform the North Florida HCA team saw improvements in its ability to provide exceptional service with an efficient, streamlined user experience. With the GCH Platform, HCA healthcare providers are able to schedule onsite events, collect samples, store and review health screening results with employees and provide customized wellness and chronic condition management plans.

Thanks to these improved operational efficiencies, the North Florida HCA was able to strengthen its relationships with employee-patients by spending more time with each individual person and developing personalized care programs.

Engaged Employees to Lead Healthier Lives
Thanks to the North Florida HCA’s partnership with Green Circle Life, medical practitioners were able to provide patients with Green Circle Life’s SmartFHR™ mobile app, which allows employees and their family members to:

• Work with their healthcare providers at the North Florida HCA to schedule follow up and engage in coaching and other programs
• Store, update and share the entire family’s health records and documents;
• Track health data manually or through connected medical devices and activity trackers,
• Analyze trends, remotely monitor health status and generate reminders and alerts for medications, immunizations, appointments and more;
• Participate in care programs to manage chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, asthma and more; and
• Access educational tools and programs to improve the family’s physical, mental, emotional, financial and spiritual health.

With quick and easy access to these tools, employees and their family members are better equipped to make meaningful behavioural changes to lead healthier lives.

Challenges:

• Building a corporate culture of health and wellness;
• Revitalizing the company’s existing/outdated wellness program;
• Improving chronic condition management with integrated healthcare services and live counseling;
• Helping employees navigate benefits offerings and services;
• Reducing the employee healthcare cost burden while improving health outcomes; and
• Stymying employee turnover and improving employee engagement.

Solutions:

• The Green Circle Life (GCL) platform designed for employers to derive the most value from their benefits investments;
• Building a culture of health and wellbeing through the use of modern healthcare technology, team competitions and collaboration, integrated wellness rewards, live coaching and chronic condition management; and
• A targeted solution for employees and their family members to encourage meaningful behavioral changes for healthier and productive lifestyles.

Results:

• Increased wellness program participation by fivefold;
• Engaged more employees and their families to lead healthier lives;
• Increased live coaching participation sevenfold for chronic condition management;
• Improved program adherence and use of preventative screenings;
• Greater utilization of all the services and benefits; and
• Reduced overall company healthcare costs.

Challenges

A retail employer of more than 85,000 employees, for many years, utilized a traditional insurer-provided wellness programs, chronic condition management and other HR benefits and services. Even with limited engagement, the employer saw strong results in healthcare cost management, however, HR leadership desired to increase engagement, improve condition management and decrease costs even further.

Realizing the limitations of traditional wellness programs however, the employer elected to pursue a new approach to employee wellness by deploying a customized mobile-centric solution capable of guiding employees and their families to make meaningful behavioral changes to lead healthier lives and manage their chronic conditions. Leadership also saw an opportunity to centralize all benefits into a single mobile app for employees and their families. By centralizing benefits into a single platform, the employer hoped to maximize the use of all available benefits and provide additional value for employees and their families to reduce presenteeism, absenteeism and overall healthcare costs.

To further ensure employees were engaged and utilizing their voluntary benefits, the employer required a partner capable of customizing the solution to align with their unique corporate culture of team collaboration, competition, commitment to customers and employee health and wellness. In doing so, the employer looked to attract new talent, reduce employee turnover and better engage employees and their families with the employer’s brand.

Solutions

The retail employer selected Green Circle Life as its health and wellness solution partner to improve employee wellbeing and benefits utilization. With the ability to quickly deliver mobile-centric platforms that provide unique company-specific experiences to employees and their families, the company’s GCH Platform easily centralizes all available benefits and services into a single platform. Employees and their family members can then utilize the app to participate in the company’s wellness programs, health challenges and organizational structure-based team competitions as well as access wellness rewards, digital coaching and care coordination.

GCH, in working with the employer, created a branded mobile app and web-based portal completely customized to the employer’s unique culture. In addition, GCH engaged with the employer’s HR benefits consultant and senior leadership team to develop a measurable, quantifiable matrix to track and trend employee engagement. Through the platform, the employer also encouraged line management and store managers to champion the company’s culture and push their team members to utilize benefits, earn rewards and participate in the company’s wellness programs.

With stores in every state, the company realized it was critical to have multimode communication capabilities within the solution itself. The GCH Platform provided such a gateway with bulletin board, messaging, texting, email, reminders, notifications, document management, literature distribution, health and wellness newsletters and more to enable internal communication teams and management to quickly and easily reach employees.

The GCH Platform also supported clinical aspects of chronic condition management with the use of modern healthcare technology and access to qualified medical professionals. Using GCH Live services, employees and their families communicated with a team of dedicated clinicians and health partners, while using the app to enable remote monitoring which improved overall compliance to treatment plans and protocols for better outcome.

Results

Increased Program Participation Seven-fold
By centralizing all available benefits into an easy-to-access benefits dashboard, employees who were previously unaware of certain benefits were now able to access them quickly on their phone, tablet or desktop computer from anywhere at any time.

The employer focused on providing services and benefits that were targeted specifically to their employees. Using both real-time and detailed historical data, coupled with powerful analytics, specialized programs were developed and delivered directly to relevant employees. For example, the employer recognized that a large population of its employee-base was managing and living with obesity, diabetes or heart-related illness, and promoted programs specifically designed to help employees manage these conditions through the same mobile app that was in use for wellness programs and wellness rewards.

Engaged Employees and Their Families to Lead Healthier Lives
As more than half of the employer’s healthcare costs stemmed from employee family members, the employer realized that family health and wellbeing was critical for cost management. Also, in order to fully engage employees with its wellness program and drive meaningful behavioral change, the employer realized it must incorporate employee family members into its wellness programs.

With the GCH Platform, the employer was able to provide both employees and their families with access to the same centralized mobile app and dashboard. Each employee was able to invite up to four additional family members to use the mobile app or dashboard, and also receive GCH Live coaching, at no additional cost to them or their employer. This engaged the employees and their family with the company’s brand and mission to lead healthy, happy lives. Incorporating modern HR and healthcare technologies, the app allows employees and their family members to:

• Store, update and share the entire family’s health records and documents in a family Electronic Health Record;
• Track data manually or through connected medical devices and activity trackers, analyze trends, remotely monitor health statuses for all connected users and generate reminders and alerts for medications, immunizations , appointments and more;
• Engage with GCH Live health coaches, nutritionists and other clinical professionals to coordinate care and better understand how to improve their health;
• Participate in care programs to manage chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, asthma and more; and
• Access education tools and programs to improve the family’s physical, mental, emotional, financial and spiritual health.

The GCH Platform also enables family members to share information securely to view each other’s progress and condition. This way, employees are able to engage with their work while keeping track of their family’s health.

Improved Program Adherence and Use of Preventative Screenings
The employer recognized that a proactive approach to healthcare was necessary to avoid costly medical treatments for employees in the future. This meant the employer not only needed to encourage employees to adopt healthy lifestyles, but also utilize preventative screenings to identify potential conditions early in their development.

The GCH Platform allowed the employer to effectively communicate this goal to employees and facilitate preventative care and wellness screenings all within the same platform. GCH Live coaches, nutritionists and health experts engage with employees and their families to provide guidance on how to improve their overall health and make meaningful behavioral changes to lead healthy lives. This further encouraged employees to participate in screenings by demonstrating an immediate and effective result.

The employer also utilized team challenges, competitions and rewards to further incentivize employees. Senior leadership also played a critical role in engaging line managers to encourage employee participation in these challenges and competitions. This not only helped employees utilize available benefits, but also earn wellness rewards and prizes, while improving their health.

Reduced Overall Company Healthcare Costs
Green Circle Life deployed a dedicated team of GCH Live Health Partners who focused on high-cost high-need employees and their families for condition management which resulted in additional cost savings and health improvements on the part of both employees and their families.

In providing employees and their family members with the holistic wellbeing tools and guidance needed to live physically, financially and emotionally healthier lives, the employer was able to reduce overall healthcare costs and improve overall organizational efficiency and productivity.

Challenges:

• Creating a seamless, easy-to-use workflow for volunteers and healthcare professionals to manage cardiac screenings for students;
• Minimizing setup and learning time for new volunteers and healthcare providers at each event
• Reducing overall per-person costs for group screenings;
• Designing a flexible screening platform to store all data including ECG and echocardiogram images and eliminate paper records.

Solutions:

• The Green Circle Life (GCL) Platform is a flexible multi-purpose platform designed for employers and Chronic Care Management (CCM) service providers to improve health and wellbeing of employees and patients. This was adopted to provide an easy-to-use workflow and two-way communication for comprehensive cardiac and wellness screenings;
• The Platform is designed to be utilized with minimal training, to eliminate paper use and effectively screen students/participants with integrated devices to automatically record and share data;
• Using the same platform, non-profit organizations, employers or healthcare organizations conduct wellness, biometric and other health screening activities on-site and in-clinic with minimum reconfiguration.

Results:

• Improved the patient registration, intake and results delivery process, transitioning from an onsite paper-based system to a 100 percent paperless process.
• Reduced per-person screening cost.
• Doubled screening throughput by eliminating manual processes.
• Eliminated all post screening data entry and paper storage.
• Delivered results and recommendation to participants online.
• Built an electronic data repository for population health analysis.
• Simplified the volunteer training process to enhance organizational efficiencies and better educate screening participants.

Challenges

The Play for Jake Foundation a non-profit organization dedicated to identifying young adults with potentially deadly heart conditions, was in need of a healthcare workflow technology solution to simplify and enhance its efforts to conduct cardiac screenings on students. With the stated goal of creating awareness and educating parents and youth about the dangers of undetected heart conditions, the Foundation organizes events at schools to provide cardiac screenings designed to detect heart conditions, for which, no readily identifiable symptoms have occurred.

The Foundation’s cardiac screenings are done in partnership with local schools and are meant to identify students with potential heart conditions and prevent sudden cardiac arrest. The screenings are conducted at local schools with no costs to the students or the schools. Foundation volunteers support this process by managing the administrative duties on the day of the event, while clinicians perform Electro Cardiogram (EKG) and limited one-view Echo Cardiogram to evaluate each student and diagnose any potential cardiac conditions. The foundation assumes costs for logistics, equipment and the medical professional’s time. However, compared to visiting a clinic, the costs are significantly lower on a per-student basis allowing a larger population to benefit from such screenings.

Solutions

The Play for Jake Foundation selected the Green Circle Life (GCL) Platform for its ease of use and seamless online workflow to replace its paper-based system to conduct its cardiac screening campaigns. With the GCH Platform, the Foundation was able to create a seamless workflow for students and parents to pre-register, volunteers to in-take screening participants, process their digital consent documents, conduct the cardiac screening using integrated devices and provide patient screening data and analysis via a shared report. The results are available for participants and family members to access online. This simplification and reduction in costs, allows the Foundation to not only conduct more screenings at various locations, but also increase the number of students screened on any given day.

The same GCH Platform allows employers and healthcare systems to create a seamless, easy-to-use workflow for employees and their families to participate in biometric and wellness screenings and conduct health risk evaluations. The platform also evaluates wellness risk factors and utilizes screening results to create personalized care programs. Families may also get ongoing coaching and coordination of care from health system professionals as well as from GCH Live health partners.

Results

Improved Per-Person Cost Efficiency
For non-profit organizations, managing costs is a key concern due to their reliance on the support of volunteers and generous donors. Lowering such costs enables them to offer screening benefits to a larger population. Prior to utilizing the GCH Platform, the process at Play for Jake Foundation was largely manual and non-intuitive. To retain and analyze the dataset after the screening event was completed, they would require many days of extra efforts to make data entry. Retrieval of historic report for a participant was a manual task. In addition, there were administrative costs associated with preparing paper authorizations and storing those documents.

After deploying the GCH Platform to conduct its cardiac screenings, The Play for Jake Foundation was able to add on-site limited one-view Echo Cardiogram in the process, eliminate paper handling, automate data and cardiogram storage, review the results in real-time and reduce screening event expenses. Inclusion of Echo Cardiogram in the process improved screening results and a single team is still able to screen up to 300 participants in a day. This equates to screening roughly twice as many participants per event or conducting twice as many events for the same funds available with the Foundation.

“As a non-profit, we’re primarily driven by our volunteers and their commitment to save lives. The assistance of donors and the valuable time our volunteers take out of their busy schedules to support a cause they believe in, along with feedback from our local community and school administration, are all important elements that support our mission to grow and screen as many students as possible.” said Julie Schroeder, Founder of The Play for Jake Foundation Inc. “The GCH platform allows us to save on expenses where it really counts – particularly by creating an entirely paperless system that allows us to pre-register participants online and provide participants with their screening results in a digital format for them to use and refer back as needed.”

“It’s a simple truth, that the more cardiac health screenings we conduct, the more likely we are to catch a student or young adult with a potential heart issue,” said Schroeder. “By creating a seamless workflow for our volunteers and student families, we’re not only able to improve the efficiency of our screening process, but also expand the role of our volunteers to engaging with participants and spending time educating them about potential health dangers and how to combat them.”

GCH Platform’s flexibility to Screen for Multiple Conditions or Potential Issues
The GCH Platform not only provides a method for the Foundation to conduct screenings designed to identify potential heart disease, but other potential health conditions as well. Following its success with the Foundation, a very large commercial health system and employers are using the platform for various recommended screenings such a bio-metric screening and wellness risk assessment leading to better employee participation and on-going engagement for life style changes.