Wellness Case Study: Lorain County Public Health

How Lorain County Public Health Achieves High Engagement, Better Health & Lower Costs with WellSteps

One of the biggest challenges in any wellness program is engaging a diverse group of employees with varying interests and needs. Lorain County Public Health, a WellSteps client, offers an exemplary model of success. This wellness case study highlights how their program achieves high participation from employees across multiple departments, delivering measurable health outcomes and substantial cost savings.

Lorain County Public Health Wellness Program Overview

Lorain County Public Health is dedicated to improving the health of Lorain County, Ohio’s 316,000+ citizens through various wellness initiatives. The public agency is comprised of multiple departments with nearly 150 employees, underscoring the need for a comprehensive wellness program that caters to diverse needs and interests.

Since 2018, Lorain County Public Health has been enrolled in the WellSteps Foundations program, which features:

• An app and online program center for every employee
• Reward and incentive tracking
• Behavior change campaigns
• Gamified challenges
• Personal health assessments
• Screening reminders
• Wearable device syncing
• MyStory social platform to share photos and messages
• Recipe and video libraries with on-demand fitness classes
• Wellness News You Can Use – a library of relevant wellness articles

RELATED: Discover the WellSteps Foundations Program

Wellness Case Study Success Stories

This wellness case study shows how Lorain County Public Health’s program achieves success through improved employee health, high engagement, and reduced costs.

Improved Employee Health

Since joining WellSteps, Lorain County Public Health has seen a marked improvement in employee wellbeing. Stephanie Lesco, Supervisor, Administrative Services Department – ​​who coordinates the program alongside Administrative Services Department Supervisor Michelle Crossan – says employees have stopped smoking, participated in biometric screenings, and routinely work out in the agency’s on-site fitness center.

“One of our recurring monthly activities is to visit our fitness room three times in a month, and we’ve seen that people who don’t typically go to the gym are comfortable coming in to work early, staying late, or using our fitness equipment during lunch,” Stephanie says.

Biometric screenings have helped employees who don’t routinely get medical checkups gauge their health levels – and in one case, even helped an employee detect a medical condition so they could get treatment.

“One of our biggest success stories is about a past director who didn’t go to the doctor, do bloodwork, or screening, but because of our wellness program, she went in for screening and found out she had a serious medical issue,” Stephanie says.

Though Lorain County Public Health offers incentives in the form of HSA contributions, they also get participation from employees who aren’t on the insurance plan – a sign that their program is having a positive impact on employee wellbeing.

“I hear people talk about the campaigns and activities in the lunchroom, and I’d say that’s something that’s not normal conversation if they’re not engaged in the program,” Stephanie says.

RELATED: Healthy Employees: An Important Factor for Workplace Productivity

High Wellness Program Engagement

Lorain County Public Health’s wellness program earns high engagement through multiple initiatives.

Leadership

“Lorain County Public Health has evolved beautifully over the course of six years, and they have great participation. I attribute their level of engagement first and foremost to their internal wellness team,” says WellSteps guide Michelle Jarvis. “They have two main wellness coordinators that are the driving force and are highly engaged. They also have recruited wellness champions for each division and hold quarterly wellness meetings. Collectively, the wellness team pushes initiatives and important communications to their team members”

Michelle and fellow WellSteps guide Caroline Kohlbrenner collaborate with Stephanie to steer Lorain County Public Health’s wellness program toward success. Communication is crucial for participation, and Lorain County Public Health’s wellness coordinators ensure all employees are kept up to date.

“We keep pushing wellness. It’s not one of these things we just expect employees to do on their own,” Stephanie says. “We highlight activities in our monthly newsletter. We have wellness champions from each department who work directly with their team to promote wellness. We hold staff meetings to coordinate challenges. We don’t just say, ‘hey, we have this program.’ We keep it at the forefront of everyone’s mind.”

RELATED: How Leaders Can Support Employee Wellness

Employee Feedback

Lorain County Public Health routinely asks for staff feedback so they can continually improve their wellness program to meet the needs of its employees.

“Their committee listens to feedback from participants, and they implement activities to ensure they have an all-inclusive program,” Michelle says.

Stephanie says the leadership team works to ensure their program delivers value, doesn’t go stale, and enables all employees to participate.

“Engaging employees in the creation of this program is important,” she says. “We would not get participation if it was created in a bubble with the wellness team. I think our wellness reps have done a really nice job of going back to each department, showing they care and want feedback. Our departments are different enough that what a team in administrative services might need is different than what a team in population health might need. We have a diverse staff, so we work to find things that appeal to all of them.”

Strategic Planning

Lorain County Public Health dedicates ample time to planning their wellness program to drive results.

“Each year, the coordinators take great pride in planning their new program and adding new elements and activities to keep participants engaged,” Michelle says. “They heavily promote and market their wellness program to all existing employees and new hires as they come.”

Stephanie says planning is essential to program success.

“We do a lot of planning. We meet to go over campaigns. We also have a kickoff meeting at the beginning of the year, a check-in in the middle, and planning in the fall,” she says.

RELATED: 15 Wellness Engagement Ideas to Build a Culture of Wellness

Fun

The agency also strives to make their program fun for participants – a key factor in ongoing participation. The program even provides opportunities for employees’ spouses to participate, and in some cases, it’s required to earn all the rewards points.

“We try to make it fun. We survey staff to get their input on what campaigns to do, because we know that getting buy-in from the team is important if we’re going to keep the program growing,” Stephanie says. “No two years are guided around the same subject matter. We do try to make campaigns spread various interests. So, we survey and see what people are interested in and we try each year to meet their needs.”

Incentives

Lorain County Public Health offers incentives for program participation, including:

• HSA contributions for employees who are on the insurance plan
• Gift card raffle prizes for employees who are not on the insurance plan
• Additional prizes for employees who have achieved their wellness goals

“We feel that it’s important that, in addition to the gift cards that WellSteps provides for campaigns, we also do extra prizes for our teams,” Stephanie says. “At the end of the year, we’ll raffle off a Garmin watch for staff who reached their goals, so we do have some big prizes in addition to earning HSA dollars.”

RELATED: 18 Wellness Program Incentive Ideas

Reduced Healthcare Costs

The HSA contributions can substantially reduce healthcare costs for its employees. That’s a direct and measurable benefit, but even those who aren’t on the insurance plan can reduce costs by adopting a healthier lifestyle.

“Participation not only benefits you health-wise, it benefits you financially by earning money toward your health insurance deductible,” Stephanie says. “With our program, you earn a great deal of wellness points for preventive care, which are the appointments and activities you would regularly complete.”

RELATED: Impact of Employee Wellness Programs on Healthcare Costs

Why Lorain County Public Health Chose WellSteps for its Wellness Program

Public agencies have many wellness options, and no two programs are alike. Stephanie says Lorain County Public Health chose WellSteps for the high level of support we offer.

“We like having independent representatives who work with us and are phenomenal with our staff,” she says. “We know we are not Michelle and Caroline’s only clients, but they make us feel like we are. We never feel like we are just a customer buying a product. Our WellSteps representatives are invested in us, care about our team, and value our feedback, and that speaks volumes about the program.”

Stephanie says some of her favorite features are the app, challenges, and ability to customize the program to meet their needs.

“We really like that there is the app. We’re getting better participation because people can do it on their phones. We also like the challenges, that’s something we see a lot of departments doing for their staff,” she says. “It can be something tailored to team members’ interests. You can cater the program to employee needs and abilities, cater it to change based on how many people you have. It would be a program that works whether you have a large or small agency. You can truly go to WellSteps and ask them to create a program with the ability to edit as you need to.”

As this wellness case study illustrates, a program that caters to the various interests and needs of a diverse staff can earn high participation levels. This in turn fosters overarching goals of better employee health and reduced healthcare costs.