MiCare, a subsidiary of Zuellig Pharma, teamed up with one of its clients that has more than 5,500 employees to implement a tailored corporate wellness and disease management program. The 12-month program has successfully reduced the number of new cases of preventable chronic disease among its employees by 20% as a result of weight loss, improvements in blood pressure and blood glucose levels.

Moses Hee, Zuellig Pharma Vice President Integrated Solutions explains: “The program aims to reduce preventable chronic diseases by educating people about risk factors and the simple lifestyle changes they can make to live a healthier, happier life. It’s not only health talks but involves behavioral changing measures and programs. This is not only good for the individual, it also helps to reduce corporate healthcare management costs and the overall burden on the healthcare system by taking a prevention, rather than cure, approach to health management.”

The program offers a range of education and fitness activities to motivate employees to adopt healthy lifestyle habits. This included regular workout sessions as well as a “Step Challenge” to facilitate active lifestyles. Employees also had access to regular health seminars and personal counseling sessions which encouraged good nutrition choices and educated people on the risk of habits such as smoking. The program also provides one-to-one counseling to help people understand what habits they should adopt and help them to stick to their routine.

Other MiCare solutions, such as the MiCare MyMed application, were also integrated into the program with employees able to monitor their personal exercise information, access online health seminars and manage wellness rewards on their mobile phones as a result. Mr Hee added: “It’s important that both the individual and the employer are able to evaluate progress and people that took part in the program underwent pre and post biometric screening to track key metrics such as blood pressure, blood glucose levels and weight.”

More than 46% of participants that completed both the pre and post screening showed improvement in at least one perimeter. A feedback survey reiterated the positive impact of the program on their employees with 98% of the participants saying they benefitted from it. One employee commented: “The program motivates me to be more alert in what I eat and how I exercise. It was also convenient with screenings done in the office, rather than needing to go to a medical center.”

The company’s chief medical adviser concluded: “The program has had a big impact on our team. People are more motivated to exercise and eat well which is not only improving their health, the social nature of many of the activities has also helped drive staff engagement. We are indeed very pleased with the results.”