A Comprehensive Wellness Program in Gainesville, Florida
Founded in 1992 in response to escalating health care costs, the city of Gainesville, Florida’s, LifeQuest program is an award-winning health and fitness program that promotes health, diet, and fitness at no cost to Gainesville employees, retirees, and their families. LifeQuest includes five key elements:
- Diet and nutrition workshops
- One-on-one counseling
- Health screenings
- Physical fitness programs
- Seminars on health-related issues
LifeQuest
The mission of LifeQuest is to reduce health care costs by developing awareness through education and behavior change programs.
LifeQuest operates 15 fitness centers so that every city facility is within walking distance of a center. Employees can meet with an athletic trainer for injury assessment and reconditioning support, and with exercise physiologists for personalized exercise programs. LifeQuest also offers events and lectures on health issues, nutrition counseling, diagnostic blood testing, and other services to support the health and well being of employees and retirees.
In creating LifeQuest, wellness and nutrition consultant Kathryn Parker worked closely with Gainesville city agencies, unions, and employees to ensure that the programs meet employees’ needs and do not disrupt critical job functions. As a result, LifeQuest operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week to accommodate not only office employees, but also shift and off-site workers in the city’s police and fire, public safety, electric and gas, and streets and parks departments.
A critical lesson learned in developing the program is that union support is essential to employee buy-in. As Kathryn Parker says, “Lack of union support is the number one pitfall of public employee wellness programs. Without union leaders behind your program, you will not achieve significant levels of employee participation.”
LifeQuest relies on health insurance data and health assessments of each employee to establish goals and measure progress. As a self-insured city, Gainesville’s Risk Management Department has access to data on health insurance and workers comp claims. In addition, LifeQuest coordinates its outreach efforts with Employee Health Services, which provides each employee with a pre-employment health assessment and on-site health screenings every two years. This enables Life Quest and Employee Health Services to prioritize their activities based on the specific health needs of employees by department and as a whole.
ProClub
To promote participation, the ProClub incentive program allows employees and retirees to earn cash rewards for taking part in LifeQuest offerings. Participants earn incentive points for taking advantage of services offered at Employee Health Services — exercising regularly, visiting health care providers, passing a basic fitness test, avoiding tobacco products and excessive alcohol, among others. Up to $350 cash is awarded annually to participants based on points they earn throughout the year.
Recognition
LifeQuest has been recognized as a template for workplace wellness programs by the US Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and major companies including the Walt Disney Corporation. LifeQuest was also the first local government and the first Florida recipient of a Well Workplace Platinum Award from the Wellness Council of America.
Results
A study of Gainesville claims data between 1992 and 2006 conducted by Mercer, Foster and Higgins Consulting shows that the city has consistently held health care costs below the national average for organizations with 1,000 to 4,999 employees. Its insurance premiums are consistently among the lowest in the nation.
While about 90 percent of the city’s 1,800 active employees participate in LifeQuest, an ongoing challenge is attracting retirees. Kathryn Parker attributes low retiree participation rates to the facts that the program has a limited web presence and that retirees need to live near the centers to be able to take advantage of their services. An important goal for the program is to expand its web-based education to accommodate retirees who relocate out of the area.
Contact:
Kathryn Parker, RD, LD
LifeQuest Director
Wellness and Nutrition Consultant to the City of Gainesville
(352) 334-5000 x5893
[email protected]
Andrea Johnson, ARNP
Employee Health Services
(352)334-503
[email protected]
i Wellness Council of America, Well Workplace Award, City of Gainesville, Platinum Award, September 2002.
