Stephen Brunero first proposed a wellness program for the state Office of Rehabilitative Services in 1992, soon after he started working there.
“People looked at me with crazy eyes,” he recalled a few days ago.
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Nobody looks at him that way now.
Today, the office’s deputy administrator and marathon runner is leading a whole wellness team that organizes workshops on obesity, diabetes, allergies and asthma, as well as walk-a-thons, softball and volleyball games, and lunchtime ice-skating outings.
Their efforts have won their workplace a “Bronze Well Workplace” certification from the Wellness Councils of America; they’re now aiming for Silver. And while they’re ahead of most, they’re far from alone in state government; the R.I. Department of Health hit Gold in 2004.
Now, as part of “Get Fit, Rhode Island,” a campaign launched by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri in June to get all state workers involved in wellness programs, the state itself is seeking certification, led by Anne Marie Connolly, a University of Rhode Island fitness expert.
Carcieri wants to make Rhode Island the first “Well State” in America, which would require one-fifth of workers to be employed at certified “well” workplaces. As Rhode Island’s biggest employer, with nearly 16,000 workers, the state could contribute greatly toward that goal – and in the process, as Carcieri sees it, set an example for the private sector.
Wellness programs started out sporadically in a few agencies, then got a big boost in 2004 when the state sent “champions” from every agency to a “Wellness University.” By the time “Get Fit” was unveiled this summer, many agencies had been shaping up for months.
Among the most active was the Health Department, which has promoted worksite wellness for years and has in-house experts. But so was the R.I. Department of Labor and Training, whose efforts go back to April 2004, when a team raised almost $1,100 in an arthritis walk-a-thon.
The department has its own wellness newsletter, a walking club with nearly 60 members, a volleyball league, three levels of yoga classes, a Weight Watchers program, blood pressure screenings and stress management workshops, even a nutrition club – the Ladies of the Healthy “Live-It” Lunch Bunch.
“This has been just a tremendous initiative,” said Rick Fitzgerald, administrator of the Temporary Disability Insurance program and the DLT’s “wellness champion.”
Next year, Fitzgerald said, the DLT team is planning to start a garden club, as well as a farmer’s market, in collaboration with other agencies at the Pastore Center in Cranston. The support from Connolly and the governor’s office has been “fantastic,” he said, and the programs are making a real impact on workers’ health and well-being.
But being in state agencies does impose some limits. While businesses can put money into wellness programs, and even offer monetary incentives for participation, Brunero, Fitzgerald and their fellow “champions” have no budgets to speak of.
“We work on a shoestring,” said Brunero. “We have a dress-down day, and we have people donate a couple of dollars, so we have the money to put on some events.”
At the R.I. Department of Business Regulation, “champion” Adrienne-Jo Evans said Director A. Michael Marques will dip into his pocket to support some wellness programs for the 100-plus workers; for others, such as upcoming yoga classes, employees pay.
At the much-larger Department of Administration, “champion” Sharon Savicki keeps costs low by finding experts among state employees and people they work with. That’s how she found an in-house yoga instructor, and the three black belts who taught a self-defense class. She’s enlisted Rhode Island Historical Society guides for lunchtime walking tours of Smith Hill and the East Side. And workers pitch in as well, donating plants and bulbs, for example, for a garden they planted.
Space is another constraint. When the Office of Rehabilitative Services started its yoga program, Brunero recalled, it was done in a corridor, and anyone who worked late “had to step over bodies” (the classes are now held in a conference room). The DBR’s yoga sessions will be held in a hearing room.
Savicki said the Department of Administration is lucky: “We have one of the newest buildings” with plenty of space. “But we’d love a basketball court. We’d like to get more men involved. We’d like to have a gym. The space has been made available, but we don’t have the money [to convert it].”
Even Connolly has to stretch her resources. The state’s allocation for her this year is $200,000, including her salary and stipends for other URI faculty working with her. So she gives yoga lessons and stress-reduction workshops herself.
And she leverages the resources of UnitedHealthcare of New England, the state’s health insurer, which, as part of its contract, is committed to providing 125 hours per year of “Care 24” wellness services. So far, the state has used very little of that, Connolly said.
United’s biggest role in Get Fit, Rhode Island was supposed to be data-gathering and analysis, but that hasn’t gone as well, Connolly acknowledged, as the employee-initiated programs. Carcieri had urged all workers to take a 50-question online survey from United to assess their health habits and risks, but privacy concerns resulted in a low response rate.
To boost the numbers, Connolly set up employee health days at 11 state agencies, inviting United representatives to come along. They built the survey into broader programs including blood pressure screenings and discussions about stress, for example, and they answered questions from skeptical workers. The effort “at least tripled” participation, she said.
The survey results, which still haven’t been released, will help guide the state’s future efforts, Connolly said – if there’s a high incidence of smoking, for example, agencies may offer smoking cessation programs. Separately, United will send materials to workers, at their homes, to help them address their risk factors.
With a strategic plan in place and activities at all the agencies, the state is well on its way to qualifying for “Well Workplace” certification, Connolly said – probably at the Silver level. Just as important, she added, the workers, whose average age is 48, are getting healthier.
“They’re just at that age where things start happening to people if they don’t change their unhealthy behaviors,” Connolly said. This intervention now, she added, will assure them a better old age, and save the state money for years to come.
“Taxpayers are concerned about where tax dollars are spent,” she said, “but we know for every dollar investment in wellness, there’s a $3 return. We know that it increases productivity. We know that it reduces health care costs.”
