RETURNS ON WELLBEING INSTITUTE PODCAST

Mike Thompson is the CEO of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, formerly, the National Business Coalition on Health.  The National Alliance is an association of over 50 regional coalitions whose members provide healthcare coverage to over 45 Million Americans. Prior to the National Alliance, Mike was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and has played a leadership role in the destigmatization of mental and behavioral health. One of Mike's signature initiatives at the National Alliance is the Wellbeing Initiative which recognizes that if organizations are going to substantially improve their employees' health and engagement, the focus must move beyond "wellness" to "wellbeing."   Under his direction, the National Alliance has gathered a team of nationally-recognized experts to produce educational wellbeing workshops for its constituent coalitions and their members. Mike discusses this initiative in the broader context of the value of employee wellbeing. By way of example, he discusses why a "whole person" approach beyond just physical health to focus on, say, stress actually may reap greater and quicker returns both in terms of engagement and reducing coverage costs than focusing on obesity."

Dr. Rajiv Kumar is the President and Chief Medical Officer of Virgin Pulse Institute, the research arm of Virgin Pulse, one of Sir Richard Branson's ventures. Its purpose is to identify scalable, data-driven, consumer-centric solutions to the top workplace issues facing companies today. Dr. Kumar and Virgin Pulse Institute are enthusiastic supporters of employee wellbeing, engagement, and sustainable lifestyle change. Dr. Kumar jumped into this arena while he was still attending  Brown University Medical School when he founded ShapeUp RI in 2006. Over the ensuing decade, he built that start-up from a dorm room idea to ShapeUp, a global company of over 100 employees, 800 organizational customers, and 2 million participants worldwide. In 2016, Dr. Kumar joined Virgin Pulse Institute after its acquisition of ShapeUp. Click here to read the edited transcript of the podast inteview with Dr. Rajiv Kumar.

Saul Kaplan is the Founder and Chief Catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory located in downtown Providence, RI. Saul started BIF in 2005 with a mission to enable collaborative organizational innovation. BIF is a nonprofit which creates a real world laboratory for innovators to explore. It tests new business models and system level solutions in areas of high social importance, including healthcare. Healthcare is one of BIF’s areas of expertise, and Saul discusses innovative strategies in healthcare delivery and in workplace wellbeing.

Dr. Ron Goetzel is the VP of consulting and applied research for IBM Watson Health. He holds a second position as Senior Scientist and Director of the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Goetzel leads research projects for employers and other healthcare purchasers interested in the relationship between health and wellbeing, medical costs, and work-related productivity. Dr. Goetzel is an internationally recognized and widely published expert in, among other things, evaluations of health promotion programs and return on investment (ROI) from such programs. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and frequently presents at intern’l business and scientific forums. We discuss his work, and his findings on why wellness has largely failed in the workplace, and what is needed. He emphasizes the importance of a culture of wellbeing as the basis for focused programs.

Paul Clark is a founder of Clark & Lavey, a full-service employer benefits solutions brokerage company. Paul’s particular area of expertise is employer healthcare insurance and self insurance. Paul discusses issues with traditional health insurance and the benefits of self insurance. He also explains how to mitigate risk through stop loss, reinsurance, and captive pools. Paul also discusses what to look for in broker-partners.