Diabetes’ negative effect on the workplace is undeniable.
People with diagnosed diabetes, on average, have medical expenditures that are more than two times higher than those without diabetes. Nationally, diabetes threatens the health of over a hundred million employees, and accounts for $175 billion in direct medical costs and $70 billion in indirect costs stemming from lost productivity, disability, mortality, and early retirement.
What can employers do to help reduce those numbers and keep workers healthier?
Focusing on innovation within workplace diabetes management programs is one path, says a new report from the New York City-based Northeast Business Group on Health (NEBGH), citing an array of new solutions employers should consider.
Emerging solutions such has client-centered medical homes, on-site clinics, near-site and convenience clinics, diabetes-oriented centers of excellence and pharmacist-led programs, often backstopped by advanced analytics and enhanced with new digital health tools, can deliver improved care to people with diabetes.
According to the NEBGH report, all of those options potentially can offer greater access and care coordination, more consistent patient engagement with evidence-based guideline-directed care, and personalized services geared to level of need. The report is based on a NEBGH Solutions Center project involving work groups comprised of more than 30 executives from employers, health plans, consultancies and other organizations.
“Tackling diabetes is a top priority for our employer members; they’re frustrated by the failure of traditional diabetes management programs,” says Laurel Pickering, president and CEO of NEBGH.
Pickering adds that new models of care, combined with employer-sponsored activities such as providing rewards and incentives and building a culture of health and experimenting with digital tools that support employee engagement can create a new landscape of diabetes management solutions that could really help employers move the needle when it comes to the diabetes epidemic.
NEBGH’s Solutions Center, supported in part by Boehringer-Ingelheim and Merck, follows its 2014 report that highlighted the lack of employee engagement in diabetes management programs and cited the need for more innovation.
“Employers have so much to gain with even modest success in diabetes management—and so much to lose if nothing is done,” says Jeremy Nobel, MD, and NEBGH Solutions Center Executive director. “Huge numbers of tools are out there and most need rigorous testing in a workplace setting, but the potential is there.”
Nobel explains that managing diabetes is a daily, and in some cases an hourly, activity for employees and family members, and employers understand that. In addition to new innovative models of care, they’ve expressed strong interest in the potential of new digital tools for supporting employees across the needs spectrum—everything from app-based glucometers and weight and activity trackers to online diabetes support groups and digital gaming.
NEBGH’s report says innovative approaches to care delivery should be driven by payment models that incent providers to deliver high-value care and are structured to promote value of services, not volume. It also says it’s important for employers to evaluate new approaches based on the needs of their specific employee populations and the organizational landscape – a company’s characteristics, culture, strengths and weaknesses.
NEBGH’ designed this project—the second phase of an in-depth exploration of diabetes and the workplace—to put multi-stakeholder participants to work in generating specific ideas and recommendations on improving diabetes management in the workplace.
The next stage involves putting these ideas to work in the form of demonstration projects that if successful, can be scaled into sustained “game changers.”
