The Health Project

 

San Jose Fire Department

This is a fine program which targets individual health improvement actions for firefighters, to reduce injuries, illness, and resultant costs, and to improve health knowledge.  Fitness levels and performance toward the overall goal of improving quality of life is admirable.  The addition of the personal trainer and the program inclusion of supporting clerical staff in the program is excellent.  The internal studies of loss work days, hospitalization payments, medical payments, indemnity payments, and disability payments clearly demonstrate the financial impact of the wellness program.  The graphic presentation is clear and compelling  and participation rates are good, incentives are  provided, and there are multiple year measurements over time in which participation increased from four percent to 70 percent.  The program presents a model that can be emulated by other similar entities and some of these processes are going on.

Contact Summary

 

General Information
Program Name San Jose City Fire Department Wellness Program
Company Name and Address City of San Jose - Fire Department4 North Second St.Suite 1100

San Jose, CA 95113
Contact Person Tom Scully
Captain, Wellness Coordinator
Program Information
Program Category GovernmentHigh-riskWorksite
Year begun 1995
Total number of individual participants 792
Number of currently actively enrolled 552
Cost per participant per year see documentation
Estimated cost savings per participant per year $360.00 (est.)
Access to Program Uniformed fire fighters, emergency dispatchers, uniformed and non-uniformed administrative personnel
Program targeted at Healthy People 2000 goals Yes
Program goals (in priority order) To promote and maintain the highest level of health, fitness, and productivity in all members of the San Jose Fire Department by:

  • reducing injuries and illness
  • reducing costs associated with injuries and illnesses
  • advocating an organizational culture that supports positive health habits
  • increasing employee knowledge of health and fitness
  • improving health and fitness levels of all fire department personnel
  • increasing physical performance and productivity
  • increasing employee morale

Critique

Overall Selection Task Force Criteria for the San Jose City Fire Department

This is a fine program which targets individual health improvement actions for firefighters, to reduce injuries, illness, and resultant costs, and to improve health knowledge.  Fitness levels and performance toward the overall goal of improving quality of life is admirable.  The addition of the personal trainer and the program inclusion of supporting clerical staff in the program is excellent.  The internal studies of loss work days, hospitalization payments, medical payments, indemnity payments, and disability payments clearly demonstrate the financial impact of the wellness program.  The graphic presentation is clear and compelling  and participation rates are good, incentives are  provided, and there are multiple year measurements over time in which participation increased from four percent to 70 percent.  The program presents a model that can be emulated by other similar entities and some of these processes are going on.

Reviewer concerns were that the relationship of the good results to the program itself were not completely clear since many other engineering safety improvements were made.  The return on investment was estimated and the evaluation design was not extremely strong. Thus the report is of the overall positive trend without perfect comparison or control group studies.  Participant vs. non-participant analyses need to focus on similar people and this is not fully documented.