A Remarkable Health Initiative at the University of New Hampshire

Watching the federal health reform process has strengthened my conviction that the changes our health system needs will have to come from the bottom up, not the top down, and that employers play a key role.

Here's how I put this idea a month ago in a post about employer incentives:

Federal health reform is the front page news, but states and businesses are the laboratories for change. Next to Governors, who have to deal with hideous budget problems driven by declining revenues and escalating Medicaid costs, employers who offer health insurance to their employees are most directly concerned about health care costs.

Health reform requires three ingredients: (1) facing facts, (2) thinking strategically and (3) embracing individual and population concerns. Given the virulent divisiveness of current U.S. politics, employers who offer health insurance are the most promising venue for applying this triad in a "businesslike" manner!

Employer insurance covers approximately 160 million of the non-elderly U.S. population. Because the business world is way ahead of health care in its zeal for (a) casing the environment for good ideas ("benchmarking") and (b) adopting those that work well elsewhere, (c) promising innovations have the potential for rapid diffusion.

I recently came upon the website for Healthy UNH, a remarkable program launched this fall at the University of New Hampshire. The scope of the program is breathtaking, as evidenced by this statement of vision and goals:

Vision: UNH will be the healthiest campus community in the country by 2020.

Values:

1. Transforming health care delivery
2. Creating value for the money we invest in medical care
3. Ensuring that the care we purchase is the right care at the right time
4. Following medical care practices that are evidence-based
5. Improving the health of our entire community, spanning multiple locations and audiences
6. Sustaining health and health care
7. Collaborating across our community
8. Engaging and educating our community
9. Advancing mental and physical well-being
10. Promoting work/life balance

The website includes action plans for changing the way care is delivered to the UNH community, educating the community about what's driving the cost trend, encouraging the use of evidence-based cost effective care, and increasing wellness-promoting behaviors. It's a comprehensive program about enhancing the bang for the bucks the University invests in health insurance (for approximately 2,800 faculty and staff) and improving the health of the entire community, which includes 15,000 students.

It's too early to know what the Healthy UNH program will accomplish. But the way the program is conceptualized can show other employers how worksites can become a force for health literacy, promotion of wellness, and delivery system change.

Over time, as more employers take a holistic approach to promoting health, reforming health care delivery, and getting a grip on runaway costs, state and federal legislators will get the message. Our leaders will lead us better when the front lines show them what needs to be done and how to do it!

(Additional posts about worksite initiatives are available via the "Employer Insurance Ethics" tab. See also a New England Journal of Medicine article - "The Employer as Health Coach.")