With about 350 employees, Arapahoe House is the largest provider of substance abuse treatment in Denver, Colorado. Established in 1975, this nonprofit organization provides essential life-saving services to patients and their families by using national models of substance use disorder.
In 2014, members of the HR team at Arapahoe House completed the HERO Health and Well-being Best Practices Scorecard in Collaboration With Mercer© (HERO Scorecard) to help the organization craft a strategic plan with measurable objectives. Employee health and well-being was becoming more of a priority for the organization and its leadership because they recognized that investing in their employees’ well-being could also translate into patient care and satisfaction. The team was interested in learning how they compared to other organizations and in opportunities to strengthen their strategic plan.
Working in collaboration with its health insurance provider, Kaiser Permanente Colorado, to benchmark its results against other organizations of similar size and industry category, Arapahoe House found that initial HERO Scorecard results revealed opportunities for improvement. One of the strategies identified in the HERO Scorecard assessment was a need to have a full-time staff member dedicated to its health and well-being program to ensure greater success for the program. Up to that time, one staff member was dedicated to helping patients recover through health improvement efforts, including increasing physical activity levels, but no one was dedicated to the health and well-being program. Later that year, a wellness manager was identified to lead efforts in that area.
Another key recommendation put into practice as a result of the HERO Scorecard was the use of a very methodical process to assemble a multidepartment wellness committee. The committee’s purpose was to strengthen employee representation, provide creative program ideas and feedback, act as subject matter experts and champions, and to improve employee health and well-being engagement efforts.
In 2016, Arapahoe House repeated the HERO Scorecard and improved its scores by 26%, exceeding scores in regional, national and size categories. According to James Warne, MPH, ACSM CPT, EP-C, Wellness Manager at Arapahoe House, “The HERO Scorecard has provided guidance in helping us focus our efforts and understand where we can grow. We are very satisfied with the improvements made at this point in time, and fully expect to continue to improve our workforce health movements with HERO helping to drive these efforts.”
Source: 2016 HERO Scorecard Progress Report
