Learning Objectives: Recognize the power of "Health and Productivity Management" principles to measure outcomes of worksite smoking cessation efforts using a case history and literature review.
Abstract:
Problem/Objective:
To capitalize on employer motivation to help employees quit smoking, programs must be cost justified. Health and Productivity Management (HPM) is a method to do this. To illustrate, the case history of a smoking cessation intervention in a 5,000 employee healthcare organization is presented. HPM measurement included:
Methods:
&
Results:
* Corporation-wide prevalence of current and former smoking, before and after intervention (outcome: decline from 21% on 10/01 to 18.2% on 11/02, or 13.7%. In absolute numbers, 142 fewer smokers, 1050 to 908)
* Self reported absenteeism by the following categories: Current smoker, quit within 5 years, quit more than 5 years, never smoker (outcome: highly statistically significant differences)
* Successful quit rates in a 100 person volunteer pilot group that met at work (outcome: 34% at 9 months)
* Change in self reported absenteeism among pilot participants (outcome: improvement from 1.22 days absent per quarter baseline to 0.68 days at 9 months.
* Re-measurement of corporation-wide self reported absenteeism after the year-long intervention. This company-wide intervention included publicizing the progress of the pilot group, promotion of motivational messages by posters/e-mail/newsletter/personal testimonial (outcome: a greater than 10% reduction in all-employee absenteeism, in all groups except never smokers. The improved absenteeism among all three categories of smokers equaled a $267,648 annual recovery of absenteeism wage replacement costs).
* A one year return on investment of 7.43:1.
Conclusions:
The author’s findings are consistent with previously reported HMP literature. The author believes these outcomes can readily be measured by other cessation programs; a “how to” scheme is reviewed.
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