Medisys Health Group is rolling out its comprehensive employee wellness program FreshStart as a compliment of its existing corporate health services, the company said Monday.

FreshStart aims to help corporations decrease healthcare-related costs, increase employee productivity and job satisfaction and enhance their corporate image by providing customized employee health guidance and ongoing support based on tangible evidence.

“By identifying specific employee health risk factors individually and providing comprehensive feedback to the individual, FreshStart provides employees with personalized health-related information and the tools required to take a proactive approach to their own health.” says Randy McCaig, director of employee wellness programs at Montreal-based Medisys.

Following the on-site health assessment, Medisys provides the company with a de-personalized aggregate report to assist them in understanding their major risk factors. This corporate health overview enables employers to better allocate their wellness dollars to address the root causes of their problems.

“Our program is different from the ‘blanket’ strategies that many other companies offer.” states McCaig, “If a company has 50 smokers, some wellness providers would propose a smoking cessation program. Our program goes further to show the employees’ willingness to change. If only 5 of those 50 smokers are willing to quit smoking, a smoking cessation program will not result in the expected ROI. A smoking education program would be better suited for this situation.”

The program is available to companies across Canada and is supported by an extensive range of on-site services that are customized to the needs and wants of the employees and the health issues identified in the baseline assessment including: lunch and learns, workshops, travel and vaccination services and annual flu shot campaigns.

“It is important to remember that an employee wellness program is not a ‘nice-to-have’ service or a ‘one-off chair massage’, employee wellness is a long-term business initiative with a tangible return on investment,” says McCaig.

IE