Implications Of Fitbit Group Health
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
New corporate wellness program connects patients and better health.
General wellness programs are becoming the rage in companies across the country as an effort to proactively reduce healthcare costs for the employers. Supporting that claim, the 2015 Employee Benefits research report by the Society for Human Resource Management found 70 percent of U.S. employers currently offer a general wellness program, creating the niche Fitbit is leveraging.
Evren Esen, SHRM’s director of survey programs, cites the Affordable Care Act as the primary impetus for the expanding presence of wellness programs. He explained that, as the cost of healthcare continues to rise, employers are turning to prevention to keep expenses low. “Organizations have been toying with wellness over the past five to seven years,” says Esen. “Time has passed, and research shows wellness programs really do make a difference in reducing overall health care costs.”
In response to this growing need, Fitbit has launched FitBit Group Health for corporate wellness partners, weight management leaders, insurers, and clinical researchers. It is also introducing Wellness Insighter, a service that helps corporate wellness leaders use comparative data to validate corporate wellness investments against industry peers. Fitbit’s corporate wellness offering is now used by over 70 of the Fortune 500 companies, meaning that it had made its mark on the healthcare landscape.
Following a list of partnerships over the past several years, Fitbit Group Health brings the corporate wellness business and the company’s additional population health channels together under a single unit.
“The launch of Fitbit Group Health is a natural evolution for us, given our success in the corporate wellness category. It positions the company to integrate more deeply into the population health space,” said Woody Scal, Fitbit’s Chief Business Officer, in the press statement.
“Partnering with Fitbit got our employee population moving and more engaged in our wellness program,” said Selena Baker, Nutrition Counselor at Ohio University, a participant of the Fitbit Wellness Insighter pilot program. “With Fitbit Wellness Insighter, our employees had the opportunity to communicate their perceptions of and changes that resulted from the program. Their input has significantly changed our approach to activity, challenge cadence, and employee communications tactics.”