It’s ubiquitous.

You might not buy a copy of USA Today at the newsstand, subscribe for home delivery, or seek out its content on the web, but you’ve probably thumbed through countless issues of the paper in your life.

Why? Well, USA Today is all over the place. It’s dropped at the door of your hotel room in the morning. It’s free at the airport. Whenever you’re in motion, it satisfies your need to sit down and read the news — from wherever you are.

The tip: Are your wellness communications everywhere? In the stairwells? The break room? Even bathroom stalls can be a great place to deliver your message to an, er, captive audience.

It’s intuitive and simple.

Stories on the front page of USA Today take up only the front page — no skipping to page A4 mid-sentence. On the front page of each section you’ll find one-line blurbs that tell you what’s inside.  Articles tend to be short and easy-to-read, sometimes with bullet-point summaries of key take-aways.

USA Today gets lampooned a lot for being the McDonald’s of print newspapers, but we think there’s a big difference between simple and simplistic. Sure, readers won’t want to turn to USA Today for in-depth analysis of the latest Congressional policy fight. But for those looking for a quick overview of the news of the day, stocks, and maybe a recap of the game they missed last night, USA Today delivers.

The tip: Know your audience and deliver the information they need in a format they can read and digest over continental breakfast at the hotel. What’s the most concise, engaging way to deliver the information your employees need?

It’s attractive.

USA Today is color-coded for ease of navigation — blue for News, red for Sports, green for Money. You know that, even if you’re not conscious of it. And years before “infographic” became a buzz word, USA Today placed an eye-catching daily chart on its front page for a snapshot of pertinent data.

The tip: Is your communication well-designed? It’s easy to overlook this step, especially in small firms where budgets are crunched. But by paying attention to clean, clear, and colorful presentation of information, your can send a message in barely more than the blink of an eye.

There’s something for everyone.

One of my favorite lunchtime hobbies in college was sitting with friends from all over the country and reading the nation’s news blurbs to each other, sharing the latest from each others’ home states and quirky headlines from across the country. And with a national weather report, you can be prepared for whatever the winds bring, wherever you are.

It’s no small feat that USA Today can be broadly appealing while remaining relevant and personal. The reading level is appropriate, the amount of information is just right, and there’s something useful for pretty much everyone in the country.

How can you make your wellness efforts just as efficient, timely, and useful?

Whether it’s a brochure, a booklet, or a full-length book, a self-care publication should answer a few basic questions:

• Is this a medical emergency?
• Do I need to see a doctor?
• Can I treat this myself?
• How can I treat myself?

A basic family self-care book is appropriate for most employees, but you may want to explore a targeted self-care program for specific populations, such as seniors, pregnant women, students, or members of the military.

2. Host a self-care workshop.

Not surprisingly, a self-care program works best when people actually use their self-care book or booklet. An instructor-led seminar, webinar, or video will orient your employees to the principles of self-care. Workshops on identifying a medical emergency, doctor/patient communication, using a self-care guide or financial wellness can help your employees get the most out of their medical self-care program and encourage them to use their self-care book as a reference tool.

3. Provide a nurse advice line.

A 24-hour nurse advice line — staffed by live, qualified experts — can assess a person’s medical situation and recommend a course of action. Many nurse advice lines also offer an audio library of health topics to provide general reference information.

4. Incorporate online self-care, or self-care software.

Digital self-care has come a long way in a very short time. There are more options available than ever before, from smartphone apps to intranet databases to web-based portals. Health portals can save employees from cyberchondria and provide a reliable source of digital health information. But whatever tool you choose to use, make sure it’s in a format your employees will use (many people still don’t have smartphones — or even computers at home).

5. Promote, promote, promote.

With a medical self-care program, communication is key. Keep medical self-care at employees’ fingertips by tying self-care tips into all of your wellness communications; newsletters, postcards, flyers, paycheck inserts, emails, and fridge magnets. (Here are five more tips for promoting self-care in your wellness efforts.)

6. Evaluate your self-care program.

After 9 months, distribute surveys and ask employees report how often they used self-care materials and whether they were able to avoid a missed day of work or an unnecessary doctor or ER visit. You’ll be able to use this data to calculate your ROI and make adjustments for the next year of your program. This is also a good opportunity to solicit feedback from your employees about how to make your program better.

Contact us for a free medical self-care ROI analysis.

Do you have a medical self-care program at your workforce? What’s working for you?

You may be thinking: What? This year just started! Believe it or not, wellness calendar season starts pretty early, with many of our clients placing orders as early as March. This is especially true for those who are looking for custom features, such as unique cover art or reminders for company events.

Maybe you’re also wondering: Who uses calendars these days? With the rise of the smartphone and digital timekeeping, a paper wall calendar might seem a little old-fashioned. But you might be surprised at how many people still use them every day, especially at their desk.

Some prefer to have information available at-a-glance. (Let’s be honest — we all lose track of what day it is.) Others like the physicality of a printed calendar, while some like the simplicity of having one calendar, in one place, that doesn’t require syncing across applications and devices. For whatever reason, calendars remain a popular item to give to your employees as part of wellness promotion efforts.

Here are 6 creative ways to use them in your workplace:

Offer wellness calendars as an incentive.

Want more employees to get a flu shot? Looking to improve attendance at a lunch-and-learn? Offering a free wellness calendar as an incentive to participate is a great way to bring more employees to your health-related events, or encourage participation in health risk assessments.

Give away wellness calendars as prizes …

… For completing surveys, winning contests or at health fairs, company parties, or achieving a health goal.

Promote calendars as a health tracking tool.

Many wellness calendars include space for tracking health information such as blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI, preventive screenings and health tests. Pick a calendar with plenty of room for vital stats tracking and encourage your employees to use it to get healthier!

Bundle wellness calendars with other communications.

Distribute wellness calendars with your first health newsletter of the year, with open enrollment packets, or with flyers for upcoming health events. Or include a healthy perk when you distribute the calendars, like a list of healthy local take-out options or a map of walking routes on your workplace campus.

Build in company events and healthy activities in your community.

It requires a little planning, but if you already have a schedule of next year’s events, why not print them in your wellness calendar so your employees can plan ahead? Include health fairs, open enrollment, company holidays, outings, retreats or seasonal events. Or make note of events in your community, like charity walks/runs, or contact information for local community fitness centers.

Celebrate National Health Observances.

Let your employees know when your company — and the rest of the country — will be observing Heart Health Month, Mental Health Month, American Diabetes Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

How do you use wellness calendars in your workplace? Do your employees like them? Let us know!

The aim is to encourage all of us to include a balanced selection of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and dairy on our plates every day. After years of education campaigns (and that ever-confusing food pyramid), many of us still remain fuzzy on serving sizes, recommended daily allowances, exactly what “sparingly” means, good vs. bad fats, and where things like sodium and processed sugars really come from (hint: the answer is usually “processed food”).

In 2011, MyPlate replaced the food pyramid -- and provided a simple visual solution to recommended daily nutrition

The added challenge in the workplace? Stressed-out employees who are constantly on the run, prone to skipping breakfast and ordering take-out for lunch.

During National Nutrition Month, make it easier for your employees to eat well while they work well. Here are some programming tips:

• Hand out healthy snacks. Curb the mid-morning dash for the vending machine by giving out whole-grain crackers, apples and bananas, low-sugar granola bars or trail mix, 100-calorie snack packs or veggies with low-cal dip.
• Praise breakfast. We all know we should eat breakfast, but inevitably we run out of time or forget! Inspire employees to start their days right and host a weekly continental breakfast with whole grain bagels, low-sugar bran muffins, yogurt cups, fruit, and coffee.
• Help with health on-the-run. Gather menus from popular take-out spots and use them to provide a “healthy lunch” guide, with each restaurant’s most nutritious choices highlighted. Think Eat This – Not That.
• Teach a class. Invite a local chef or culinary student to teach an on-site cooking class. Focus on simple weeknight recipes that are quick to prepare and include a few inexpensive ingredients. Or try a Top Chef-style cook-off for your workplace’s most talented gourmands. If your site is too small or has no kitchen, organize a free or subsidized cooking class at a community center.
• Tour the grocery store. Hire a local registered dietitian to take a group on a tour of a local grocery store. An RD can teach people to read ingredient labels, find healthy bargains, plan menus, and accommodate dietary requirements (e.g., high blood pressure, low-sodium diets, diabetes).
• Take-home, not take-out. Assemble healthy take-home dinner kits with fully prepped ingredients and an easy-to-follow step-by-step recipe, like vegetable fajitas. You can choose whether you provide kits for free or ask employees to pay a small fee ($10 for a meal that feeds four people).
• Publish a company cookbook. Ask employees to share favorite healthy recipes, or pick a theme, like a specific ingredient, recipes for entertaining, weeknight meals or seasonal food. Celebrate its publication with a potluck lunch.

Other resources

Access healthy recipes, tip sheets, and other National Nutrition Month educational materials here.

Learn more about MyPlate, plus tips for healthy eating on a budget, bilingual materials, a Super Tracker and sample menus, at ChooseMyPlate.gov.

For a full year of National Health Observances, download our free 2012 Wellness Activity Planner.

Whether you missed it, want to hear it again, or just want to hang onto the slide deck for your reference, we’ve made this webinar available to download:

Download the slides

Download the audio recording

We enjoyed sharing our expertise with the employee wellness community, and interest in our program hugely exceeded our expectations! So we’ll be doing it again soon. If you’d like to stay informed about upcoming webinars, sign up here, or simply subscribe to the Working Well Blog.

We look forward to talking with you again soon!

Dr. Powell shares his expertise in a free webinar!

WHAT: Power to the Patient: Teaching Wise Health Care Consumerism in the Workplace
WHEN: Wednesday, February 29, 1:00 PM EST*
LENGTH: About 30 mins., plus time for questions
HOST: Dr. Don R. Powell, President and CEO, American Institute for Preventive Medicine
REGISTRATION: Completely free! Sign up here — space is limited.

WHY: Wise health care consumerism is the missing link in most wellness programs.

Escalating health care costs have burdened both employees and employers. The average cost of a visit to the doctor is about $199; a visit to the ER costs about $922, according to AHRQ. About 25% of those visits are unnecessary, costing billions of dollars every year.

Teaching employees to make wise decisions about their health care empowers your employees and saves your company money. It can even improve an employee’s general health — whether or not you have a wellness program in place.

In this to-the-point, engaging webinar, our President and CEO, Dr. Don R. Powell, will discuss compelling reasons to incorporate wise health care consumerism in your wellness program. He’ll also share practical, creative and budget-friendly ideas for giving your employees the tools they need to navigate an increasingly complex health care system.

Join us on Wednesday, February 29, at 1:00 PM EST*. This program is FREE, but space is limited, so register today.

We look forward to speaking with you on 2/29!

*Please note new date!

Years ago, the American Institute for Preventive Medicine launched National Wise Health Care Consumer Month. Health care costs were rising, and we wanted to promote the cost-saving, health-enhancing potential of medical self-care and health care education programs as part of workplace wellness.

Years later, health care costs are still rising. Consumers are spending more time choosing cars and appliances than selecting a health plan and skimping on prescriptions to save money.

We’ve seen a wide range of trends take hold in workplace wellness — biometric screenings, on-site clinics, online health portals  — and while we’re happy to see employers exploring new strategies and implementing new tools, we still believe in simple, cost-effective, time-tested solutions, and we still think medical self-care and wise health care consumerism should play a central role in the workplace.

We believe that wise health care consumers:

To kick off the month, we’re offering a free Wise Health Care Consumerism Toolkit. We hope it will help you get the gears turning, brainstorm health care consumerism programs and provide you with a few resources you can use in your efforts.

Throughout February, we’ll be sharing information and resources about wise health care right here on the blog (healthylife.com/blog) and on Twitter (twitter.com/workingwellblog) with the hashtag #whcc2012.

Do you promote wise health care consumerism in your workplace? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line here or  leave a comment below.

Whether you’re looking to improve your existing wellness program or start one from scratch, the American Institute for Preventive Medicine is here to make your job easier. In 2012, we’re introducing The CALMER Approach for one-stop wellness programming, publications and evaluation. It’s a total — and totally customizable — wellness solution for your business, whether you employ 10, 100 or 10,000 people.

C – Communication

How you communicate with your employees will directly affect the success of your wellness campaign. Our studies indicate that 90% of wellness program members are interested in receiving regular information on health, fitness, nutrition and well-being. From newsletters to pocket planners to rich audio/video content, make plans now to spread the word throughout the year.

A – Assessment

Health risk assessments and biometric screenings are helpful for you — the employer — to gather information about your population and determine your program’s priorities.

They’re also helpful for your employees. Screenings and assessments help educate your employees about their overall health and can serve as a kick-off that motivates health awareness and healthier lifestyle choices.

L – Lifestyle Enhancement

About 74% of health care costs can be attributed to a person’s lifestyle. Your wellness program probably addresses at least one of the following:

• Tobacco cessation
• Weight loss/nutrition
• Stress management

Our lifestyle programs are unique — and they work — because they’re based on teaching strategies for permanent behavior change. It’s not about dieting. It’s not even about willpower. It’s about giving you the skills you need to succeed. Whether you want to offer health coaching, a self-help program or online / social wellness challenges, we have a program that fits your needs.

M – Medical Self-Care

Medical self-care has a higher ROI than any wellness intervention. In 26 independent studies, we’ve documented an average savings of $83.15 per employee in nine months due to reduced doctor and E.R. visits.

Our self-care books and guides, newsletters, nurse advice line, online self-care products and promotional materials will give your employees access to the right information, at the right time, to receive the right level of care.

E – Education

From HealthTrackers for diet and exercise to Be Well playing cards to credit card-sized CareKits, our materials present health information in novel and engaging ways to motivate permanent behavior change. We also offer comprehensive incentive management programs complete with fulfillment, tracking software and one-click reports.

R – Reliable Evaluation

Why wait a year to see if your program is working? We want you to see results! We can provide reports as often as you’d like them, and with some of our programs you can even generate them yourself.

Reports are available for HRAs, health coaching, lifestyle programs, wellness challenges, nurse line utilization and medical self-care.

If you’re ready to get CALMER in 2012, download our catalog and get in touch.

As an umbrella approach to this month, consider offering a tool to help your employees keep track of recommended preventive screenings. (We have a handy health screenings refrigerator magnet, for instance.) What better way to start a year in good health than getting organized and making plans for year-round preventive care?

Cervical Health Awareness Month

Every year, 12,000 women in the U.S. are diagnosed with cervical cancer. But cervical cancer is preventable, and regular Pap exams and HPV testing improves accuracy of screening results and can detect cancer early on, when it is far easier to treat. Our medical advisory board recommends Pap testing every one to three years for women age 65 and younger.

Promote awareness in your workplace: download free posters and find free/low-cost screening sites from the National Cervical Cancer Coalition

Thyroid Awareness Month

Gotta love the neck check! During thyroid awareness month, consider teaching a simple thyroid self-exam at a lunch-and-learn. All you need are some hand mirrors, glasses of water and this handy how-to. Most biometric screenings also offer a TSH test to check for over- or under-active thyroid hormone levels. If you’re doing biometric screenings to kick off your program this month, consider including some education materials about thyroid conditions. You’ll find free info sheets here.

Glaucoma Awareness Month

Glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness in the world. Of the 2.2 million Americans have glaucoma — and half of them don’t even know it. Regular eye exams are important for detecting glaucoma. The Glaucoma Research Foundation recommends eye exams every 2-4 years, every 1-3 years for those ages 40-54, and every 1-2 years for those over 55.

Those at higher risk for glaucoma should get an exam every 2 years. Employees can take an online glaucoma risk assessment here. A helpful description of various screening tests for glaucoma (including the dreaded puff test!) available here.

National Blood Donor Month

This one isn’t screening related, but we think it’s actionable nonetheless.

Blood supplies tend to run critically low in the winter months, and in January especially. Consider hosting a workplace blood drive to help out. The American Red Cross does pretty much everything — all you need to do is provide a space and help recruit donors. Get started here.