Technology is changing the way Americans take care of their health. Today, anyone can monitor and analyze key health indicators like their activity, heart rate and stress levels by simply opening an app on their mobile device.

This ability to use technology to more easily track personal health, manage disease and partake in competitive fitness and health regimes could lead to a re-imagination of how we experience our personal health on a daily basis.¹

Most already agree that it’s making a difference. 96 percent of health app users believe apps help improve their quality of life and 76 percent of healthcare professionals believe mobile apps and wearable trackers will help patients with chronic diseases.²

The benefits of wellness technology can make a difference for your organization, too. By encouraging your employees to use health apps and trackers, your workforce may become healthier—leading to fewer sick days, more productive workers and lower health insurance costs for your organization.³

Convenience-first health solutions.

Health apps and wearable trackers make it easy for your employees to make healthy decisions. It provides them with the ability to create a food diary, record their exercise or set sleep reminders—which can help make it easier for them to make better choices throughout the day. Eventually, these healthy behaviors can become second nature.

But that’s not all health technology can do. When an app is combined with an activity tracker, your employees will be equipped with a more comprehensive set of well-being tools. It may give them access to a variety of convenient features, including:

• A range of health tracking abilities.
• Motivational messages that encourage healthy behaviors.
• Easy access to doctors and healthcare professionals.
• Reminders to take medication.⁴

Encourage health tech at your organization.

At WebMD Health Services, technology is a core part of our well-being program and we’re always looking to grow partnerships that can help us deliver effective well-being solutions.

To help you improve the health and well-being of your employees, we’ve listed the top three ways you can incorporate wellness technology into your organization.

1. Make trackers a part of health challenges.

At WebMD, technology is a big part of our healthy workplace challenges. We encourage employees to sync a Fitbit or similar fitness device with our wellness portal—giving them the ability to automatically track their progress during wellness challenges.

If your organization doesn’t already, you should also give your employees the ability to use trackers during wellness challenges. Without them, it can be difficult for employees to manually log 10,000 steps, keep a journal of everything they eat or record their exact hours of sleep for a week. But with fitness trackers, your employees will be able to more easily stay on track toward completing challenges and reaching their health goals.

2. Offer disease management apps.

About half of all adults suffer from one or more chronic diseases, which account for seven out of 10 deaths and 86 percent of U.S. health-care costs.⁵ But by offering disease management apps, you can help reduce the impact chronic disease has on your organization.

It will always be difficult to encourage employees to take better care of their health. But, disease management apps use a combination of remote monitoring, behavior modification and personalized intervention—which can help improve the outcomes of some of the most costly and difficult-to-manage conditions like diabetes, heart disease and lung disease.⁶

3. Start discussions using social media.

Social media is another powerful tool that can help encourage your employees to improve their health. Try creating community forums where your employees can connect and discuss healthy habits. You can create discussion boards about hiking, basketball, gardening or any other healthy interest your employees have. Then, let your employees share ideas, stories and inspiration to help each other stay on track toward a healthy lifestyle.

You can also create community forums for employees with chronic diseases. It will create an in-office support system and provide an outlet for employees to share their challenges, victories and tips for better managing disease and living a healthy life. Plus, it could provide an opportunity for your employees to connect with co-workers they may not have otherwise.

Use health tech to improve your employee’s lives.

Health technology is transforming the way people think about well-being. It’s making it simpler than ever for us to work toward our health goals, manage chronic disease and start open discussions about health and wellness. Not to mention, it’s making it easier for organizations to support their employees on their journey to wellness.

There’s good news though. By becoming more resilient, your employees are less likely to experience these types of stress-related symptoms—helping them to stay healthy and performing at their best. But you might be wondering, how do I achieve a resilient workforce at my organization?

At WebMD Health Services, we recently learned the answer to that question and more. Throughout the year we meet with our Employer Client Council to share ideas, learn best practices and lead presentations about well-being in the workplace. This past meeting, we had the pleasure of learning about resilience during a presentation from Dr. Andrew Shatté—Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of meQuilibrium and a respected professor and researcher at The University of Arizona.

During his presentation, Dr. Shatté said resilience can help people reduce stress by improving their ability to bounce back from difficult experiences—whether at work or home. He also added that when your employees are resilient they will be able to recognize a stressful situation, so they can react properly, adapt quickly and maintain their physical and psychological well-being.

Say an employee recently went through a divorce. If they are resilient, they may be able to look at the experience as an opportunity to build a new life and prevent their emotions from affecting their well-being. Or, maybe an employee is struggling to adjust to a new role with more responsibility. By becoming more resilient, they may be able to maintain a positive attitude and face new obstacles with confidence.

Even better, everyone has the ability to be resilient. It isn’t a personality trait or something you’re born with— being resilient is something that can be learned by acquiring a few important skills.

To help you work toward better well-being in your organization, we’ve listed some of the top skills that lead to resilience:

Emotional control.

Emotions can drive behavior. When your employees let their emotions take control, they are more prone to making decisions they might regret. It’s healthy to talk about your emotions—but sending an angry email in the heat of the moment will almost always lead to regret and an unhealthy working environment.

Adaptability.

The only constant in life is change. Your employees may have their first child, lose a loved one or experience another stressful change in their life. Although they can’t make the challenges that come with these changes disappear, they can accept their new circumstances and take steps to improve their quality of life.

The right perspective.

Pessimism can prevent people from pushing ahead in the face of adversity. But, research says being overly optimistic can also hinder performance. People who are resilient have mastered realistic optimism—they see the challenges ahead but feel ready to move forward and know they’ll get through it.

Empathy.

Empathy is the ability to see yourself in someone else’s shoes. When people are more empathetic, they realize everyone faces hardships and more readily accept their own personal circumstances when life presents obstacles. For your organization, this can lead to more resilient employees and better relationships between co-workers, clients and customers.

Open-mindedness.

Preconceived notions are subconscious beliefs that many people have about work, relationships and social situations. More often than not, they drive harmful behavior that leads to stress. For example, employees who have the preconceived notion “if you want it done right, do it yourself,” are likely to take one too much work and burn out. To become resilient, it’s best to keep an open mind in any situation.

Incorporate resilience into your holistic well-being program.

To help your employees master the skills needed to be more resilient, consider offering stress management and resilience tools through your well-being program. WebMD Health Services is proud to partner with meQuilibrium because we feel that they provide best-in-class online stress and resilience management. It’s a personalized program designed to help your employees feel more resilient and focus on what’s important to them.

Empower your employees to evaluate their  stress personality type, thinking patterns and lifestyle habits to pinpoint areas that cause them to feel overwhelmed—in just 10 minutes. Then, it will provide them with a mix of interactive lessons and activities that can help the way they respond to life’s daily pressures, which can help lead to plenty of benefits, including:

• Improved duration and quality of sleep.
• Balance and calm, even in life’s most stressful moments.
• Greater focus and clarity.
• A balanced perspective and ability to feel better about what’s ahead.

Achieve resiliency in your organization.

Change is always around the corner and can cause stress for anyone. But as Dr. Shatté has taught us, becoming more resilient can help us to be prepared, no matter what life throws our way.

It’s time we all take better care of ourselves. 

Beginning with Mother’s Day on Sunday, May 10, this week marks the 16^th annual National Women’s Health Week, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health. This is a great time for employee and health plan wellness coordinators to remind women how important it is to put their well-being front and center. If you’re a client of WebMD Health Services, this is easy: Just log in to the Client Community now in order to download our beautifully designed Women’s Health awareness campaign to share with your population!

In honor of National Women’s Health Week, here are five tips on how to jump start making your health a priority each and every day. (Men: Stay tuned for National Men’s Health Week next month!)

1. Go for Your Annual Women’s Wellness Exam. Because of the Affordable Care Act, more women across America who use an in-network provider now have access to female-targeted preventive services without the hassle of a co-pay or co-insurance. There’s no good reason not to take advantage! As part of your well-woman checkup (which is now considered separate from any other physical exam or injury-related visit) you’ll be able to track your health history and set realistic weight-loss or exercise goals for the future. Plus you’ll have access to:

• a Pap test every 2-3 years if you’re over 21 (women between 30 and 64 can get a Pap test and human papillomavirus (HPV) test together every 5 years instead)[2. WomensHealth.gov, http://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/pap-test.html] to detect early signs of cervical cancer
• a mammogram every 1-2 years for women over 40 to detect early signs of breast cancer
• HIV and other STI screening and counseling
• birth control counseling services
• osteoporosis screening and counseling for women over 65

2. Get Regular Physicals. Do you operate at your optimum capacity each and every day? Or are you suffering from a physical ailment that just won’t go away? Preventive care is the first step to making sure you’re keeping track of your vitals and staying on top of your health. If you have an ongoing issue, a regular physical can help pinpoint the problem and nip it in the bud before it gets any worse. And by screening for high-risk conditions like high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, or skin cancer, you’ll be better prepared to catch warning signs early and can adopt an age-appropriate treatment plan if one should be necessary. You know what they say, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Thanks Benjamin Franklin.

3. Exercise. Taking part in some regular form of physical activity not only keeps your bones strong and your body in shape, but it also helps clear the mind of built-up stress. According to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s most recent Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (2008), adults should do at least 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity exercise, 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or an equivalent combination the two, every week.[3. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans Summary,” http://www.health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/summary.aspx] And remember, you don’t have to push yourself to the limit to feel tip-top. Running laps twice a week, speed walking around the neighborhood every other day, or getting hooked on Zumba class with your best pal are all super ideas to get momentum on your fitness routine. The best part is you’ll start feeling good about your progress in a matter of days!

4. Manage Stress Effectively. According to this well-cited infographic posted on the American Institute of Stress’s website, 44% of Americans feel more stressed than they did 5 years ago, 1 in 5 Americans experience “extreme stress” (shaking, heart palpitations, depression), and 3 out of 4 doctor visits are for stress-related ailments such as heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. A whopping 60% of all human illness and disease is caused by stress or complications from stress![4. The American Institute of Stress, “Stress Is Killing You,” http://www.stress.org/stress-is-killing-you/] With statistics like these, it’s important to be aware of your stress levels—and to take action when life feels too out of control, like making use of counseling services both in and outside the workplace, getting adequate sleep each night, and not relying on bad habits like smoking to keep stress at bay.

5. Eat a Balanced Diet. Paying attention to the foods you eat each day should be a no-brainer. But with all the conflicting studies published on what’s healthy and what should be avoided, it can often be difficult to figure out a dietary plan that’s right for you. To prevent heart disease, stroke, and other deadly illnesses, a general rule is to eat plenty of nutrient- and vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables (especially leafy greens!); protein-heavy foods like fish, lean red meat, beans, eggs, and nuts; low- or no-fat dairy products (yogurt is a great source of calcium), and whole grains such as rice or oatmeal. Foods containing trans fats, added sugars, or high amounts of sodium should be avoided. And for those of you who drink alcoholic beverages, moderation is key! That means for women, one drink—12-fluid ounces of beer, 5-fluid ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits—per day.[5. Office on Women’s Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “How to Eat for Health,” http://womenshealth.gov/fitness-nutrition/how-to-eat-for-health/] For more detailed information, check with your health care provider. Or check out these helpful resources:

• WebMD’s Healthy Eating Guide
• USDA’s Choose My Plate for creating your own personalized healthy diet
• US FDA’s Guide to Understanding Nutritional Labels

But health coaches offer much more than one-on-one benefits for individuals. Onsite coaches, especially, act as feet-on-the-ground wellness champions who influence the entire workplace culture. And, just like those late-night infomercials say, there’s much more where that came from.

1. Health program referrals

All of our health coaching clients have their own wellness program referrals loaded into our coaching case management system. These include other wellness program components, such as EAP, financial services, and onsite fitness centers and clinics. They could also be wellness initiatives, such as a walking challenge at a specific location and time. This means that our coaches can see all of these referrals in our system, with details and contact information, and can even transfer participants to a contact person to encourage connection and engagement. Our account teams work closely with our clients to make sure this list stays updated. This helps ensure that participants engage with other aspects of the wellness program, not just coaching.

2. Communications and point-of-contact

Our coaches are a key part of clients’ communications strategy for internal wellness initiatives such as challenges. Coaches are also the main point of contact for questions about rewards and incentives. Coaches have this information on hand and can help guide people during coaching sessions on what they need to do to earn rewards, point them to new opportunities, and keep them motivated.

3. Ongoing health assessment completions

Coaches encourage participants to continue to take health assessments after year one, so you have accurate information to guide your wellness program. Toward the end of a client’s program year, coaches will encourage people to go back online and fill out another health assessment, to see how their health has changed and also to help them enroll in the coaching program or other wellness initiatives for next year.

4. Health fair & screening support

We regularly send our coaches to health fair and screening events to help educate people about the health assessment, health coaching, and their health in general. This helps people put a face to coaches’ names and makes our telephonic coaching feel much more personal. Having a coach on hand for screenings can also be a great tool to capture the “teachable moment.” Screening participants have a trained professional to talk to as soon as they receive their results, so they can get their questions answered and immediately engage with the right programs, such as ongoing one-on-one coaching.

5. Goal Setting

Coaching sessions are built to help participants set and meet their goals. This can include helping people set goals relating to corporate initiatives such as referrals to other programs, participating in challenges, and setting reminders to participate in screenings. This helps drive engagement with these programs, as well as helping individuals meet their own goals.

6. Program feedback

Our coaches always encourage people who have feedback about the program—whether good or bad—to talk to their human resources representative or reach out to the wellness program administrator. We know how valuable feedback is for our clients, and having a coach’s encouragement can be helpful.

Lifestyle and chronic condition management

WebMD has done a great job of training me to speak with participants about diabetes, COPD, asthma, CAD, and heart failure. There were a lot of hours put into training and follow-up training on all of the conditions. But the more calls I complete, the more I understand that these participants really just want to improve their lifestyle. They may be on medications to manage their condition, but with simple lifestyle changes, the progression of the condition can slow and their quality of life can improve.

Taking medications properly is just part of the conversation. All the lifestyle factors like exercise and eating habits are also a large part of the discussion. With the condition management program, a participant gets to spend time more talking about their condition, which they may not get during a visit with their physician. With our help and this tailored program, we can move a participant to a healthier life where they have better control of their condition.

Online condition management tools support progress

One of the things that participants seem to really like about the condition management program is the online tools. They can upload their values, set goals, and find weekly activities to improve their condition all in one place. They are excited that the coach can view and follow their progress as well. Participants also like the devices that are sent to monitor their blood pressure or weight. This is just another way accountability is integrated into the program.

The first participant I spoke to who was enrolled in the condition management program had type 1 diabetes. She managed her glucose levels well and was not having any significant issues with the diabetes. She just wanted to lose some weight. She was having a hard time finding the time for exercise and her doctor was pressuring her to increase her activity. Together we worked out a plan and she was very excited that the plan was realistic and fit into her busy schedule. We discussed monitoring her glucose levels before and after her exercise routine and she seemed very confident that she could do the exercise four times a week and still have great control over the diabetes.

With the specific, personal approach of coaching and the added knowledge of chronic conditions, together we can improve the quality of life of any individual in the condition management program.

But let’s look deeper.

According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology,[1. Success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers and nonresolvers, Journal of Clinical Psychology, April 2002.]  people who explicitly make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions. There is something about making ourselves accountable, especially if we involve others in our social networks.

Tom Connellan, in his book The 1% Solution for Work and Life,[2. The 1% Solution for Work and Life: How to Make Your Next 30 Days the Best Ever, Tom Connellan, 2010.]  explains that we have been approaching resolutions the wrong way. And I think he might be right.

Resolution secret #1: Accomplishments are great motivators

Remember that while motivation in general can lead to accomplishments, accomplishments themselves are actually great motivators. When people lose the first five pounds, they feel more excited about the next ten. When you run across the finish line, you want to sign up for the next race. When we experience success, we remember how good it feels. So the first secret is to use your accomplishments, no matter how small, to provide momentum along your journey, rather than just focusing on the big goal. We can do this in health management in addition to our role as health providers.

Resolution secret #2: Think big, but start small

That’s not say that big goals aren’t good to have. I ran a marathon back in November, and that goal motivated me to run throughout the year (and even this morning!). But we can’t forget that big goals are made up of small stages and many small steps, both literally and figuratively. Rather than set yourself (or your population) up for disappointment by focusing on how far you are from your big-picture goals, set yourself up to succeed by zeroing in on all the small steps and mini-accomplishments along the way. Going running one day a week is a success if you weren’t running at all. But it’s a failure if you only think about the larger goal of exercising every day. Think big, start small, and set yourself up to succeed.

Resolution secret #3: Accept that change isn’t always fun

Finally, let’s be real with ourselves. Change isn’t fun. Even positive change. It’s not fun to wake up an hour earlier to go for a run. It’s not fun (for me!) to order vegetables instead of fries on the side. But something interesting happens as you start making conscious changes. Better habits slowly get replaced. Conscious decisions become less conscious. Mindfulness turns into newer, healthier habits. And discomfort becomes more comfortable—and sometimes even fun. When you are at the starting line, prepare yourself for what lies ahead and don’t kid yourself that it will be effortless or that you can beat the system by making positive change a completely positive experience. Many of us expect things to be easy, and we fail when we are reminded that they aren’t. Expect things to be challenging, but make this year different by embracing the challenge and recognizing that eventually, you can create new habits and a healthier lifestyle.

Get S.M.A.R.T.

When evaluating a wellness program to help support a large group of people, we have to keep these ideas in mind. A program needs to be S.M.A.R.T.

• Specific. The program needs to identify small changes that your employees can make in order maintain momentum and impact prevention in the long term.
• Measurable. Variables like blood pressure, weight, lipids, and blood sugar are easy to assess, and help our coaches and your employees identify successes as well as areas that may require further effort.
• Attainable and Realistic. People participating in a wellness program should feel comfortable with their goals and recognize that they are possible with good information and coaching support.
• Time-based. WebMD solutions are proven to help modify cardiovascular risk factors over discrete time periods—these concrete changes in blood pressure, lipids, and weight through healthier lifestyles are our best opportunity to improve heart health on a population level—both short-term and long-term.

So let’s set our employees up for success by thinking big, but focusing on smaller steps. And most importantly, let’s embrace change for what it really is: challenging, but exciting too. Best wishes for a happy, healthy 2013!

James Beckerman, MD, FACC is a cardiologist with the Providence Heart and Vascular Institute in Portland, Oregon and a fellow of the American College of Cardiology. He previously chaired the Oregon Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and is the team cardiologist for the Portland Timbers Major League Soccer Team. He is the author of The Flex Diet and a member of the clinical advisory board at WebMD Health Services.