National Workplace Wellbeing Day

A Success Already!

Today is National Workplace Wellbeing Day

By Dr Ann Shortt - Medical Director, Full Health Medical

At Full Health Medical we just want to say a huge congratulations to the organisers of the inaugural National Workplace Wellbeing seminar taking place in Croke Park. It's already oversubscribed and shaping up to be a fantastic event.

Ireland's first National Workplace Wellbeing Day is an initiative of the Food and Drink Industry Ireland, part of Ibec, and is being organised by the Nutrition and Health Foundation.

Why not drop an email to our CEO, Paul Mc Carthy to learn how Full Health can help your organisation? Even better, if you are attending he can meet you in person!

So why is the workplace a great place to champion wellness?

Approximately one third of adult life is spent at work. Employment is a key social determinant of health, and the workplace is recognised as a key avenue for health promotion.

This has led to a shift in attitudes around workplace wellness, with employers expanding the concept of employee health beyond conditions acquired in the workplace to any condition which could potentially impact on employee performance.

Blood Pressure

In 2007, nearly 852,000 adults in the Republic of Ireland (25.1%) had high blood pressure. By 2020, this is expected to rise to over 1,192,000 (28.3%). This represents a 40% increase in the number of people affected - an additional 341,000 adults - in less than 15 years.

Incidence of Stroke

Similarly, by 2020 the number of adults in Ireland with clinically diagnosed stroke is expected to rise to almost 29,000 per year - this represents a 27% increase in 10 years!

Diabetes

In 2010, the rate of clinically diagnosed diabetes for all adults in Ireland was 3.2% (106,000 people). By 2020 the rate of clinically diagnosed diabetes among all adults is expected to rise to 3.8% (136,000 people). This will represent a 28% increase in 10 years.

Recognition of the growing problem of chronic diseases and of the fact that these diseases are caused by a build up of risk factors over many years, has led stakeholders to focus on the importance of prevention and to look at new ways of targeting those at risk.

Example of how the award winning Full Health platform empowers employees to wellbeing

About Full Health

Full Health Medical is a leading preventative health management company that focuses on the early detection of illness and disease in the workplace and community.

It's Full Health platform is a smart technology which revolutionises the health screening experience and produces personal and evidence based employee friendly reports at scale. 

Full Health provides employees with the same convenience they now take for granted as they shop, bank or book holidays online via any mobile or internet connected device.

The key outputs are quality medical advice and action plans for the individual, with population health reporting for the organisation or community.  All delivered via a lean and streamlined process.

All medical advice is provided by a multidisciplinary team of medical specialists and consultants. The specialist team includes experts in General Practice, Accident and Emergency, Occupational Health, Gastroenterology, Cardiology, Rheumatology, Public Health and Epidemiology.

The result is employees are empowered to better health and organisations are provided with recommendations and an implementation plan on how they support employees be healthier, happier and more productive. This ensures they get a return on investment in the region of 4:1 to 6:1.

It is extensively used by:

• Employers and Multinationals in the UK and Ireland
• Government organisations
• Leading health screening providers in the UK and Ireland
• Occupational health providers in the UK and Ireland
• Private hospitals & clinics in UK and Ireland

t:@full_health

e: wellness@fullhealthmedical.com

Full Health Medical selected for Global Challenge Cup Competition

We are delighted to announce that Full Health Medical has been selected to take part in a major competition aimed to identify the most promising start-ups in the health sector worldwide.

The Challenge Cup 2015 is run by  US based startup incubator 1776. It is a global competition that spans 16 cities in 11 countries to identify the most promising startups with the best ideas to solve the world's biggest challenges.

Full Health Medical, was one of a number of companies shortlisted from more than 5,000 applicants for the Challenge Cup 2015. We will be competing on February 27th in Dublin.

If successful in Dublin, Full Health Medical will have the chance of winning a place at the week long Challenge Festival in May in Washington D.C. in the US to compete for up to  $650,000 in prizes. This event will convene the top 64 startups from the 16 regional Challenge Cup competitions. It also provides the unique opportunity to connect with mentors, corporate partners, policymakers, and potential investors.

The Challenge Cup 2015 competition aims to identify startups that are compelling, world changing, highly scalable and that aim to make tangible differences in peoples’ lives.

Full Health Medical was founded by Paul McCarthy and his wife Dr Ann Shortt who works as a consultant in emergency medicine.

The company provides user-friendly health screening software that instantly combines medical test results and questionnaires to produce personalised health reports, accessible to the patient or employee on any internet-connected device. 

Participants in screening programmes powered by Full Health Medical are provided with personalised, accessible health reports created and approved by experienced medical specialists and consultants which highlight areas of concern and advise them on the next best course of action.

The platform contains all of the features necessary to enable health and wellbeing screening to be a faster, higher quality and drastically more cost effective service. Full Health provides employees and patients with the same convenience they now take for granted as they shop, bank or book holidays online.

 Dr Shortt, Co Founder of Full Health Medical said, “This is great recognition of the big problem we are trying to solve.  Although the level of preventative health testing has increased, the quality of interpretation of those results and advice has not. Our software has already interpreted 750,000 complex medical test results and made these patient friendly and accessible on any smart phone or Internet connected device”.

Mr Paul Mc Carthy CEO Full Health Medical said “The Challenge Cup comes at the perfect time with our launch in the UK next month at the NEC Birmingham Health and Wellbeing at Work 2015 exhibition. We have a strong established business here in the Irish market with our technology extensively used by health screening providers, large employers, multinationals, occupational health providers, private hospitals and Primary Care Centres.”

For more information please contact, Paul McCarthy (paul@fullhealthmedical.com)

Telephone (UK) +44 (0) 203 4681118
Ireland                +353 (1) 5549795

Website: www.fullhealthmedical.com

T: @Full_Health

@PaulMcCarthy1

Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress - European Week for Safety and Health at Work

The European Week for Safety and Health at Work begins on Monday the 20^th October 2014. The theme of this year’s event is “Healthy workplaces manage stress”. 

This initiative comes at a particularly time for the Irish workforce. Internal government documents have recently revealed that the cost of sick leave in the public sector alone is “unsustainable” and is costing the State about €430 million per annum. Private businesses in Ireland are also severely impacted; a study by employers group IBEC in 2010 revealed that a total of 11 million days are lost to absence each year, costing these businesses as much as €1.5 billion per annum, equating to €818 per employee.

Of particular relevance to the campaign, stress is a key contributor to workplace absenteeism and loss of productivity. Stress is the second most frequently reported work related health problem in Europe and, along with other psychosocial risks, is thought to account for more than half (50–60 %) of all lost working days. And Ireland is not immune; a workplace survey published by Aviva Health Insurance in 2013, for example, revealed that almost three quarters of employees say a pressurised work environment has become the norm, with 55% reporting stress and/or anxiety.

So what can be done to address these issues?  Paul McCarthy, CEO of Full Health Medical, an award-winning preventative health management company, believes that the answer lies in employee education and programmes which support employee wellness. “While occupational health has traditionally been focused on minimising the risk of physical hazards to health and safety in a workplace, employers are increasingly recognising the value of having a healthy, motivated and mentally resilient workforce. Research by the Department of Health in the UK has shown that for every £1 spent on wellness programmes, there is an average return on investment of £3.73, including a 34% saving in absenteeism costs”, said Mr. McCarthy, who went on to note that other advantages of these programmes include improved on-the-job decision making and time management, improved workforce morale, and reduction in employee turnover.

Mr. McCarthy believes that the first steps in reducing absenteesism need to be centred around employee education; “if employees don’t understand their current health status, then how are they expected to be proactive in improving it? These days people are constantly being given mixed messages about diet, exercise and other aspects of their health, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to decipher what is best for them individually”.

So should all employees get health screening? Mr. McCarthy admits that there are certainly issues around mass screening, as evidenced by the controversy currently surrounding the NHS Health Check Programme, which targets adults in England between the ages of 40 and 74 with a free health screening every five years. “The reality is that mass, unfiltered screening would simply result in unnecessary workload for an already stretched health service, and in particular would result in an impossible extra burden being placed on GPs. However, there is an argument for targeted screening and, more importantly, education for employees who are missing work on a regular basis. Using targeted screening and education as the first step in a programme of health improvement would benefit both the employee and the business.”

One area in particular where Mr. McCarthy believes significant improvements could be made is within the health service itself. “Sick leave cost the Health Service Executive €223 million in 2012 alone. It is clear that traditional efforts to reduce absenteeism have failed to make any impact on the problem, and perhaps it is time for the HSE, as part of its renewed focus on health and wellbeing, to consider targeted health screening and corporate wellness programmes for its own employees. By taking a proactive approach to addressing these problems within its own workforce, the HSE would point the way for other employers in Ireland”.

The European Week for Safety and Health at Work begins on Monday the 20^th October. Further information can be found at https://osha.europa.eu/en/campaigns/index_html.

Employers - Good Health is Good Business

Full Health Medical calls for new approach to address unsustainable absenteeism rates and support employee wellness

Internal government documents have recently revealed that the cost of sick leave in the public sector is “unsustainable” and is costing the State about €430 million.

Private businesses in Ireland are also severely impacted; a study by employers group IBEC in 2010 revealed that a total of 11 million days are lost to absence each year, costing these businesses as much as €1.5 billion per annum, equating to €818 per employee.

So what can be done to address these issues?  Paul McCarthy, CEO of Full Health Medical, an award-winning preventative health management company, believes that the answer lies in employee education and programmes which support employee wellness. “Research by the Department of Health in the UK revealed that for every £1 spent on wellness programmes, there was an average return on investment of £3.73, including a 34% saving in absenteeism costs”, said Mr. McCarthy, who went on to note that other advantages of these programmes include improved on-the-job decision making and time management, improvement of workforce morale, and reduction in employee turnover.

Mr. McCarthy believes that the first steps in reducing absenteesism need to be centred around employee education; “if employees don’t understand their current health status, then how are they expected to be proactive in improving it? These days people are constantly being given mixed messages about diet, exercise and other aspects of their health, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to decipher what is best for them individually”.

So should all employees get health screening? Mr. McCarthy admits that there are certainly issues around mass screening, as evidenced by the controversy currently surrounding the NHS Health Check Programme, which targets adults in England between the ages of 40 and 74 with a free health screening every five years. “The reality is that mass, unfiltered screening would simply result in unnecessary workload for an already stretched health service, and in particular would result in an impossible extra burden being placed on GPs. However, there is an argument for targeted screening and, more importantly, education for employees who are missing work on a regular basis. Using targeted screening and education as the first step in a programme of health improvement would benefit both the employee and the business.”

One area in particular where Mr. McCarthy believes significant improvements could be made is within the health service itself. “Sick leave cost the Health Service Executive €223 million in 2012 alone. It is clear that traditional efforts to reduce absenteeism have failed to make any impact on the problem, and perhaps it is time for the HSE to consider targeted health screening and corporate wellness programmes for its employees and, in doing so, for the HSE to point the way for other employers in Ireland by taking a proactive approach to addressing these problems. Just think of what could be achieved in other areas if even a fraction of this €223 million could be better spent in other areas of the health service”.

Talk to us today about your employee wellness needs.

Reference:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/430m-sick-leave-bill-in-public-sector-unsustainable-1.1889605

Support a resilient and talented 14 year old to become one of world's youngest nuclear physicists.

My 14 year old nephew Tom has just launched a crowd funding campaign to help him fulfill his major ambition of building "no less than" a home made nuclear fusion device called a Fusor. He is one of the youngest people in the world to take on such a project and will no doubt be a future leader in the development of clean nuclear power generation. As a next generation health technology, we felt it was only right that Full Health should support a next generation energy project, we hope you can lend a little support too!

Tom says, the main reason that he is building a Fusor is to use it as a key component in a larger design as part of a longer term goal.  This goal is to build a sub-critical, fusion-fission, hybrid generator.  A sub-critical generator is a new type of generator that has never been constructed before, even though it is safer than current fission deigns.  The idea behind it is that a fusion reaction produces neutrons to fuel a further fission reaction which produces energy.  The fission part of the generator is fueled by thorium which is a better and safer fuel than uranium.

Building a Fusor is a huge and challenging undertaking for any physicist and one might say an enormous challenge for a 14 year old from Co. Mayo in the West of Ireland.

If you can support Tom's Fusor project, you will be helping an exceptionally talented and resilient young scientist to become one of the youngest people in the world (and the first in Ireland) to build a Fusor and spearhead the development of advanced, clean nuclear power generation.  In addition, you will be supporting and endorsing our next generation of future physicists.  Without the €11,000 required to build the Fusor, Tom cannot progress any further with his sub-critical reactor, he needs all the support you can give.

Tom's website has all the details and all the updates on this challenging project and his crowdfunding campaign has just been launched with the crowd funder Indegogo. Tom needs to raise €11,000 to build the Fusor and I can assure you that he will greatly appreciate any donation that you can make to his fundraising campaign.

Please click on the link below to view Tom's project (video and text summary) on the Indegogo crowdfunding website and follow the simple instructions to contribute to the campaign.

www.indiegogo.com/projects/fusor-a-fusion-reactor

To see all the details and updates on Tom's fusor project, please visit Tom's website at the link below 

www.tommccarthyprojects.com

You can also follow Tom on Twitter at 

@FusorFusion

Want a Healthier, Happier and More Productive Employee?

Employee Wellness Programs are the answer.

Presented below is a list of some essential elements that your wellness program should have, in order to improve your employees’ cardiovascular and general health.

·         Early detection/health screening,

·         Nutrition education & promotion,

·         Stress management/ reduction,

·         Smoking cessation & prevention,

·         Regular physical activity,

·         Weight management,

·         Disease management,

·   Changes in the work environment to encourage healthy behaviours promote occupational health.

Your Employee Wellness Programmes should be integrated into the workplace structure by using these strategies below:

·         Health education that relies on valid, credible  sources and is focused on         employee skill development;

·         Initiatives that are incorporated into existing employee programs;

·         Worksite screening linked with medical care for follow-up on modifiable           risk factors.

Wellness programs must address the needs of all employees at a given workplace, regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, culture, job type, or physical or intellectual capacity.

Worksite wellness programs should be designed to be culturally sensitive and all-inconclusive, and employers should also consider targeted, complementary interventions for their more vulnerable employees that are specifically designed to engage those who are economically challenged, less educated or under served (Carnethon et al, 2009).

Here at Full Health, we can ensure that your wellness programs run efficiently and cost-effectively. Through using our online, next-generation platform we automate and streamline the health screening process, eliminating paper and improving the experience. We can produce personalised employee health reports post-screening and based on these, we can produce population group reports that allow for tailored interventions and education programmes to be initiated.

For more information as to how Full Health can help your employees, please email Paul McCarthy at paul@fullhealth.ie or call on +353 (0) 87 947 1255. 

Visit our website www,fullhealthmedical.com