Agenda Item: Engaging the Business Community in Healthy People

MS. LEIFER: I have to say that, as people file in the room, that I am thrilled that I am right after break. I was going to -- if I was in the actual formation that we started with -- I was going to make everybody get up. Health in the work site is critical. When you are sitting for a long period of time, you have to get up. You have to stretch. You have got to get the blood moving. We also have a strong philosophy that the folks in Partnership for Prevention already know, and that is that the mind absorbs what the seat can endure.

By the way, I am Lauren Leifer, and I am president of COMPDISK and COMPDISK Consulting Group. I am really pleased to say that I am chairing the Healthy People Business Advisory Council. I would like to thank all of you for inviting me today. It has been splendiferous. It has been fascinating.

Again, when we talk about closing the gap, sharing information, knowing where people are coming from, I can now go back to the Council and share a hell of a lot more than I would have been able to otherwise. I truly believe that strong partnerships between the public and the private sectors are critical to achieving our nation's health promotion and disease prevention objectives. A truly comprehensive perspective is critical.

As you may know, the Healthy People Business Advisory Council has been organized by Partnership for Prevention with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Right now we have 17 companies on the Council and we are looking to reach about 30 within a few months.

This Council has been formed because we, the business people, believe, as purchasers of health care and providers of work site health promotion services, and critical members of our communities, that we do have an enormous stake in our national health policy. We come from a real common sense point of view. Not only do private businesses spend almost half a trillion dollars on health services each year, but we are also acutely impacted by preventable illnesses, injuries and, yes, we are very, very concerned and we know there is a lot of room for improvement.

We in business also look at the health conditions that manifest in lost work days, decreased productivity, Workers Compensation claims and increased health insurance premiums and available health care in general. We believe a solid preventive health strategy can positively influence worker productivity and reduce health care costs and help eliminate disparity.

As was mentioned this morning, and as has been mentioned again during the day, the goal is to have the folks on the street know, and be able to access, what we see as critical. Accessibility is really one of the key words that sticks in my mind as I walk away today.

The goals of the Healthy People Business Advisory Council are two-fold. First, the Council will work to engage the business community in the whole, in the implementation of Healthy People 2010 objectives. We are currently developing a web site and other communication vehicles to get the word out about Healthy People 2010 and its importance and criticalness to the business community.

We will be surveying business leaders across the country to get their views on the proposed objectives, and we will be reporting these findings back to the Department of Health and Human Services during the public comment period. Trust me, you will get it.

Second, the Council is working on developing a process and tools for promoting private sector leadership in achieving Healthy People 2010 objectives. At our first meeting last March, we began brainstorming on ways we could build Healthy People 2010 into our business strategies. Many of the large corporations have already brought it in, but we are also, on the Council, addressing small and mid-sized corporations. I would like to bring to everybody's attention that today and as we move forward into 2010, that minority and women-owned small businesses now employ more than the entire Fortune 500 work force. So, we are really critical to the process and we are really going to take it from the grass roots up.

The Council's focus is to develop recommendations that take into account the reality of all of our bottom lines. These strategies must be reality-based for both small and large companies. While most business leaders would like to support policies to promote a healthy work force, we do face many barriers including employer motivation, privacy and confidentiality issues, confusing medical protocols and -- here is one that I love -- serious lack of the provider's knowledge of and participation in prevention activities. The Business Advisory Council will be exploring strategies for overcoming these barriers, such as self-care and medical consumerism for employees, and developing clear guidelines to protect confidentiality in screening and treatment programs.

We -- businesses -- are an integral part of our communities and, as such, we have a profound interest in promoting healthy communities. Our health promotion and disease prevention concerns don't end when our employees leave at the end of their work day, whether it is 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon or 7:00 o'clock in the morning.

The Healthy People Business Advisory Council will pursue opportunities for businesses to become involved in their community health issues. Again, getting to the goal is true public awareness and accessibility, and we are going to be working really hard at that.

Finally, I would like to speak to the relationship between businesses and government agencies. We on the Business Advisory Council feel that it is critical that businesses, federal, state and local agencies work together to facilitate information exchange -- that accessibility -- and to develop policies that will help companies support a healthy work force. Government agencies are the primary source of information about health promotion and disease prevention, and we in business need help in easily accessing that knowledge base. It is critical to being more intelligently and effectively able to implement and maintain our mutual goals.

All too often, business and public health think that they speak different languages. I could hear there were some other people here who also thought they were speaking different languages. In reality, we are simply in different lanes on the same side of the highway moving toward the same destination. Understanding each other's needs and sharing our resources will get all of us to our destination, a strong national health policy.

I am really very excited about working on the Council. Each member, without exception, is a strong promoter of health promotion and disease prevention. Otherwise, we wouldn't be spending our time there.

I am confident that our combined energies and creative talents will lead to innovative strategies for engaging the business community in the Healthy People 2010 process. By working together, we can marry the science and policies of health promotion and disease prevention with their practical applications in the work place, closing yet another gap.

If you have any questions about the Healthy People Business Advisory Council, please feel free to contact me, Lauren Leifer, or Sarah Knab at Partnership for Prevention. Again, thank you very much for inviting me to participate in today's activities. Thank you.

[Applause.]

DR. SATCHER: Any burning questions? Well, you gave them an opening as to how to follow up with you.

DR. LEIFER: Absolutely, and I have an e-mail address equally as well. You can get that from Sarah, but it's lauren@compdisk-inc.com. E-mail me at any time.

DR. SATCHER: Okay, good. We go to the last item on our agenda. I think it is appropriate that, as we look to the future, we realize that things are not going to be static. There are going to be a lot of changes taking place as we try to pursue the goals and objectives for 2010.

We are very fortunate to have with us Clem Bezold, who has given a lot of thought to this kind of thing. He is the President of the Institute for Alternative Futures. He is going to talk with us about some possible, maybe even probable, scenarios for the future.

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