If you were to ask me which workplace health service had the single most impact, it would be… drumroll please… Heart Checks.
Of course, that doesn’t include our Annual Programs or our digital platform, which incorporate a whole range of services into one targeted strategic solution. And of course, it doesn’t apply to every single workplace — yours may have specific issues unique to a particular group of employees.
However, I make this call for three clear reasons:
1. Heart disease, or cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in Australia.
2. Symptoms are not always apparent without medical tests.
3. You can avoid it: risk can be avoided or reduced through changes to lifestyle and health habits.
Let’s say this again: It kills. You can’t always detect it without tests. It can be prevented.
To me, heart checks are an absolutely essential service that every employer should provide.
Here’s a rundown of the benefits:
Benefits for your organisation
1. Heart Checks give you a diagnostic tool to measure the health of your workplace.
- You’re probably already using some kind of Health Risk Appraisal such as our Personal Health Assessment that gives you a broad overview of your employees’ health issues. The comprehensive Corporate Report you get from running Heart Checks will give you insights into specific but serious health risks, such as cholesterol, glucose and blood pressure.
2. Heart Checks help you address the absenteeism and presenteeism caused by cardiovascular disease.
- Certainly, employees with CVD are absent more often. But what’s less known is that employees with risk factors for CVD have higher absenteeism and presenteeism. Risk factors are habits such as poor diet, lack of exercise, high levels of smoking and drinking.
- Interestingly, reducing just one risk factor has been shown to decrease presenteeism by as much as 9% and absenteeism by 2%. Reducing more risk factors results in an even higher reduction.
3. Heart Checks give extra meaning to your health activities. Nutrition, exercise, stress management — these are not only essential to help your employees feel great and work better, but they are essential for heart health.
4. Heart Checks show employees you care about their health — not just through feel good programs, but by providing access to provide qualified experts to give them personalised one on one attention.
Benefits for your employees
1. Heart Checks help employees reduce their risk of heart disease, by measuring key signals for CVD: their blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose levels, waist circumference and BMI.
2. Employees who do our Premium checks also receive an assessment of lifestyle factors which lead to CVD, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, nutrition, exercise and stress. They leave with a Personal Heart Care Guide which includes a personal record of results and action plan.
You can find out more about our Heart Health Checks here.
National Heart Week is coming up in May.
