An Aha Moment for HR Professionals

The Healthcare Performance Management (HPM) Institute released a report today that explains something with which occupational health professionals are already well-acquainted: Wellness and other preventive interventions can help reduce employers’ benefits costs, outcome analysis is critical and human resource departments should be paying closer attention.

The report, The Last Mile: The Role of HPM in Rounding Out the Enterprise Human Resource Management Mission, calls on companies to incorporate workforce health into their overall strategy for protecting and developing human capital resources. According to the report, “health and wellness programs have not traditionally been an HR function,” and employers tend to rely on third parties to develop and deliver content.

"Historically, executives have viewed their human resource departments as cost sinks," said George Pantos, executive director of the HPM Institute. "But with the help of innovative health care performance management technology that allows employers to measure and manage their benefits programs, business leaders can instead look to their human resource teams for savings."

The report endorses senior management support for greater fusion of human resource and HPM functions. For example, employers are encouraged to use software-enabled processes to track, monitor and manage health risks in targeted populations.

The report includes examples of how HR teams are deploying HPM technology to improve employee health and productivity.

"Using HPM tools, we are able to alter behavior by introducing opportunities for employees to live healthier lifestyles, and also to use their insurance in more preventative ways," said Michael Bekiarian, general manager of Sapien, a human resource management systems provider. "Outside the HR department, executives are seeing how a measurable decrease in absenteeism, for instance, results in greater productivity."

The Healthcare Performance Management Institute is a research and education organization dedicated to promoting the use of business technology and management principles to deliver better and more cost-effective health care benefits. Free registration is required to access the report on the organization’s website.