A strategic commitment to a healthy workforce provides employers the benefit of happier, more productive employees. A new, predictive assessment tool can help employers create a healthy workplace and control spiraling health benefit costs, according to a new white paper by Allostatix, LLC.
Employers are increasingly interested in predictive models and assessments to understand potential health problems among their workforce and offer proactive help. Traditional health risk assessments, however, do not provide a comprehensive picture of total health.
ìPredicting Future Wellness: Improving Employee Health and Cost Savings,î a new white paper and accompanying podcast available for download at www.allostatix.com/predictingwellnes, advocates for tests that do not rely on self-reported information or even previous medical events. Such approaches do not provide a picture of ìwhole body health,î a much more accurate predictor of current and future wellness.
ìEmployees with normal test levels and no history of medical events are often assumed to be healthy and ílow-risk,íî said Gordon Horwitz, Allostatix founder and chief executive officer. ìSurprisingly, that is not always accurate. Such testing does not anticipate which employees might be on a negative health trajectory ñ a function of the body constantly reacting to a barrage of daily stresses.î
While daily stresses affect everyone, Horwitz explained, in certain employees they havenít built up to affect total body health. As stresses levels begin to be detrimental to employee healthóthe ìyellowî groupóexisting health risk assessments or conventional predictive tools begin to break down. Such individuals often are categorized as ìhealthyî and ìlow riskî as they donít display symptoms of illness. Yet their symptoms of accumulated stress will begin to manifest within the near future, typically within 3-5 years.
Allostatix, a Cincinnati-based startup in the health and wellness market, has introduced a new approach to assessing employee health based on 25 years of longitudinal medical research. The Allostatix Load Test(TM) identifies individuals who fall into the yellow category early enough to do something about it.
More information is available on stress, allostatic load and the Allostatix Load Test in ìPredicting Future Wellness: Improving Employee Health and Cost Savings,î a white paper and accompanying podcast available for download at www.allostatix.com/predictingwellness.
Predicting Future Wellness Key to Improving Employee Health, Increasing Cost-Saving, says Allostatix
New health informatics firm helps employers anticipate future cost in the workplace
