First Prize Large Business Category - 1,500 employees or more

Chesapeake Public Schools

Pictured from left to right:

Vicki Perry, Laura Rodgers, Jim Ward, Victoria Lucente

Photo by Eileen Ciccotelli

Chesapeake Public Schools employ 5,000 employees in multiple locations,   schools .  Their Wellness Program is less than two years old.  With the support of the Superintendent, Dr. Nichols and the Assistant Superintendent for Budget and Finance, Victoria Lucente, the school system has gotten off to a great start.  Their short term strategic initiatives include Weight Watchers for Employees with a contribution by the city for their participation; a Smoking Cessation Program; a Diabetes Care Management Health Map Rx Program offered through the business coalition; Wellness Newsletters to Employees; Walking Programs; and Annual Fall Health & Wellness Fair. 

One of the benchmarks of developing a successful wellness program is creating a cohesive wellness team and communicating your program goals and objectives through a diverse and thorough communication plan. CPS has formed a cohesive Wellness team that meets twice monthly for Committee Meetings.   The judges noted three strengths of their application that I wish to share with you: 1) a Communication Plan that includes use of the school wide intranet, as well as published newsletters 2) Adoption and use of  electronic Health Risk Assessment’s (HRA) with assistance from their health plan 2) adoption of  a community-based program titled Health Map Rx, a diabetes disease/care management program utilizing community pharmacists to provide coaching and counseling to diabetic employees.  We look forward to the launch of this program utilizing a coalition sponsored best practice model.

Accepting the award on behalf of the Chesapeake Public Schools is Jim Ward, Risk Management Coordinator

First Prize Small Business Category - 250 Employees or fewer

Central Virginia Health Network - CENVANET

Pictured from left to right:

Julie LaPrade, Michael Matthews, Shannon Lodge, Carol Duckworth

Photo by Eileen Ciccotelli

Located in Richmond, Virginia, CENVANET is a small company with 36 employees.  The CENVANET Wellness Program was first developed and launched in 2003 and has grown in size and scope over the past five years.  The program strives to support and measure the health status of its employees in an effort to positively impact health outcomes, productivity, health care costs and overall job satisfaction.  In their application, CENVANET stated “ we strive to have a wellness program equal to or better than much larger companies.”  The review committee was most impressed with the short term and long term strategic priorities of their wellness program.  Short term objectives include” Creating awareness of individual’s risk factors; encouraging participation in available programs; and Improving productivity.  Their long term strategic priorities for wellness program initiatives include: Creating a culture of wellness and health improvement and Managing  use of health care dollars/resources.  Akey component of their wellness program centers on the use of a Health Risk Assessment tool that provides the building blocks for program structure and also allows measuring the outcomes of the program.  Their application included charts and graphs of Employee Gender for HRA completion, Annual Employee Particpation Rates for HRA Completion; Employee Average Age, Employee Program Participation; Employee Risk Factors and Employee Preventable Risks.  The application also included the Annual Wellness Program Budget (which is less than $10,000) and a 3 year trend analysis.  Congratulations on program implementation and program evaluation efforts.

Accepting the award on behalf of CENVANET is Carol Duckworth, Vice-President, Sales & Marketing

Honorable Mention

Great Atlantic Managment

Pictured from left to right:

Judy Jones, Sue Martinez, Annette Hood

Photo by Barbara Wallace

Great Atlantic Management, LLC has been selected to receive HONORABLE MENTION for the 2008 Wellness in the Workplace Awards.  Great Atlantic is receiving Recognition for a start-up wellness program, focused on weight management and exercise. 

Great Atlantic is commercial real estate leasing company located in Virginia Beach and Newport News.   The company was recently featured in a success story in the Health Fitness section of The Virginian Pilot Newspaper for their implementation of their first employee weight loss program.   The pilot program began with Great Atlantic’s administrative staff in the Virginia Beach office.  They had 11 employees who lost more than 200 pounds in 12 weeks.  The President and CEO, Aubrey Lane, participated in a 17 week program and in addition to losing 12 pounds he improved his body fat percentage from 24 to 17 percent during this period.  As a result of this successful effort, the real estate management company has established a fitness center in their Office Park in Virginia Beach for 295 tenants to use free of charge.  A personal trainer can also be contracted with for a reduced tenant rate. Three of the administrative gang at Great Atlantic are with us today and we hope they will report back to us next year their continued company wellness efforts.