Researcher studies ROI on wellness programs

For ages, the healthcare industry has conducted a raging internal debate as to how much programs like disease management, employee wellness and more recently, pay-for-performance actually deliver. Some claimed ROI of as much as 30-to-1 on investment, figures critics vigorously challenged. Today backers are more likely to claim 2-to-1 or 4-to-1 returns, but they're still arguing such programs are no-brainers financially.

Hoping to sort out truth from fiction regarding such programs, a Cincinnati researcher has kicked off a project designed to study the actual return on investment on these types of cost-savings efforts. Thomas Wilson of the Population Health Impact Institute is developing an accreditation program to verify that such programs' ROI claims have some teeth.

When examining these programs, the Population Health initiative will look at the transparency of their methods, statistical significance of metrics they use to measure success and validity of the comparison groups they use.

To learn more about this research:
- read this Business Courier of Cincinnati article

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