Companies Get Worker Health Data
By Carly Harrington, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.
Nov. 24–With health-care costs continuing an upward trend, benefits manager Phil Sartell has a keen interest in the health of Oak Ridge Associated Universities’ 500 employees and the kind of care they receive.
A new data warehousing initiative by HealthCare21 Business Coalition could help Sartell and more than a dozen other area employers pinpoint potential cost burdens for their companies.
“We’re not going to be searching for sick employees. But this data will give us information that could help us control costs,” said Sartell, ORAU director of compensation and benefits.
Participants are starting to get a glimpse at such data including which doctors prescribe brand drugs over generic, which illness is creating a cost burden for the company, and if employees are visiting the emergency room over walk-in health clinics.
The data, which is divided into 10 categories, is not specific to individuals but is batched in aggregate to protect employees.
“Most employers are starting to go blind. They assume diabetes is a problem. They assume cardiac is a problem. With data warehousing, true illness burden surfaces,” said Jeff Townsend, director of marketing for HealthCare21, a nonprofit organization representing more than 100 employers in the Knoxville, Chattanooga, Cleveland and Nashville areas.
For example, one participant found they had a problem with back pain and neonatal babies. Women weren’t going to the doctor regularly during pregnancy. The company had a vague sense something wasn’t standard, Townsend said.
“Diabetes, obesity, cardiac they do hit the radar, but it might be something else,” Townsend said.
Typically, such information has been kept by a company’s health plan. But that information can get so averaged or indexed that it doesn’t tell the whole story, Townsend said.
Plus, if a company decides to switch carriers, the information isn’t transferred.
“Part of the risk if you change from a Cigna to a BlueCross or vice versa is losing access to that information and trending capabilities,” said Brian Mitchell, compensation and benefits manager for McKee Foods.
With data warehousing, a company owns the information.
The project started more than a year ago as a way to provide access to actual data versus expected data. But it has also become a powerful analytical tool, Townsend said.
“Employers don’t want another ream of reports. They want us to clean it, collect it, store it and to tell us what it means,” Townsend said. “There’s some pretty granular information that you can glean that up to this point hasn’t been used.”
Participation in the project is voluntary and limited to HealthCare21 members. Businesses share the costs, but they are able to compare their data with other participants.
“We can get our data cut and analyzed in a different direction,” Sartell said. “But we can also bench our categories against our peer organizations.”
Mitchell said the information would help McKee identify problem areas and develop long-term strategies to address them.
“If we have a problem with diabetes, how well are they managing it?
Are they getting the tests they need to minimize the severity of the disease and keep it from getting worse?” Mitchell said.
McKee would also use the data to find which providers are the most effective and help the company direct employees to those providers.
“Everyone is collecting data,” Townsend said. “The hospitals collect data, the doctors, the health plans. Now, the employer is collecting his. It can create great dialogue. They can share in what they’re learning.”
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