Creating a wellness program that patients actually follow

Whether you want to build an effective wellness program for your patients, your staff, or both, creativity and a little planning can help you create a popular program that can encourage people to make healthier choices and become more active.

In this article, you will learn some practical steps and ideas for how to craft your own wellness program and keep people actively engaged with it, too.

Keep reading for ideas on how to move your wellness program forward and help improve your community’s health in the process.

Involve your participants

Of course, you can always start by asking your community what they want to see in a wellness program. Is there a health book or diet program group you could start for your patients? Maybe your community would be interested in a one-month diet bootcamp where they can learn nutrition and practice healthier eating.

Do your employees want to make their wellness program into a fun game or friendly competition? Ask around and find out what people already know, do not know and are curious about with their health and wellness.

As answers start rolling in, look for popular ideas and also watch for what is missing in their answers. Did you get a large number of requests for a wellness program that would actually be unhealthy? Maybe that is your opportunity to teach a course offering factual information and helping your community make sense of the trend.

A trendy and dangerous popular diet fad, for instance, could be your opportunity to create a wellness program that educates and provides better information on that particular dieting topic or provides a healthier alternative.

Incentivize participation

The right incentives can drive interest and motivate people to participate. With employees, a boost in pay can go a long way or a special bonus for completing a fitness challenge. Think of popular incentives that will keep your group focused until the competition is over. Sometimes, you will need to use multiple prizes, so keep that in mind. Before investing in several larger items, consider doing some basic investigation to identify the best motivators for your team.

Then, you can even involve the community in running the competition. Nominate someone on your team to run the contest, or in a larger organization you can put together a committee to do it. If you have a particularly enthusiastic patient that wants to volunteer to run a community fitness competition sponsored by your organization, that is also a great way to get more people involved and generate buzz.

Sometimes, the more involved the participants are in planning, the more interested and engaged they are with the competition itself.

Design a competition

If you want to inspire enthusiasm and get people engaged with their health, a fun competition can do wonders for your wellness program. You will need to find the right combination of prizes, challenges and goals to launch the competition and attract interest. It may help to do a short survey or hold a focus group and ask your participants what prizes and competitions would interest them the most.

Having one or two larger prizes, or a large number of small prizes, could help. Make sure they are relevant to your audience and actually inspire them enough to make them want to enter your contest and work hard to win.

References

1. De La Torres, H and Goetzel, R. “How to Design a Corporate Wellness Program that Actually Works.” Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/03/how-to-design-a-corporate-wellness-plan-that-actually-works. Published: March 2016. Accessed: December 2017.
2. Taylor, T. “8 Steps to a Corporate Employee Wellness Program.” The Balance. https://www.thebalance.com/corporate-employee-wellness-program-1177989. Published: February 2017. Accessed: December 2017.