SV Herald: Chiricahua is a Worksite Winner
Chiricahua is a Worksite winner
Chiricahua Community Health Centers receive silver Healthy Arizona Worksites award
Published July 5, 2016 in the Sierra Vista Herald
PHOENIX — Chiricahua Community Health Centers, Inc. (CCHCI) was recognized last week as a Healthy Arizona Worksite by the Arizona Department of Health Services. The Healthy Arizona Worksites Program is a public health initiative offered by the Arizona Department of Health Services and the Maricopa County Department of Public Health. Its mission is to help employers learn how to successfully implement worksite wellness initiatives to improve the health of their employees and businesses.
“The Healthy Arizona Worksites Program delivers evidence-based initiatives that improve the health of employees,” said Mark Martz, policy consultant with the Arizona Department of Health Services. “The numbers show healthy employees reduce their risk for both short-term illness and long-term chronic conditions. When employees succeed, the workplace succeeds.”
CCHCI chief executive officer and chief medical officer Jonathan Melk said, “We believe in the overarching goals of the Healthy Arizona Worksites Program and wish to improve the health of our employees as well as to be a leader within our community for worksite wellness.”
The CCHCI employee wellness coordinator, Vicki French, received the award at the HAWP annual event in Phoenix, June 23 on behalf of the organization. She said, “I appreciate the opportunity to work with Arizona Department of Health Services and Cochise County’s health policy manager, Roza Vickers, in order to make our employee wellness program more effective. This process helped us to identify strengths and weaknesses and resulted in the creation of a strategic plan for the future.”
CCHCI began an employee wellness program in 2015. Based on the data collected at an initial biometric screening of employees and a follow-up one year biometric screening, the percentage of employees whose body mass index put them at risk for heart disease, obesity and diabetes had been reduced by 5 percent in the first year. Partially due to the success of the program, CCHCI saw savings in their insurance rates and was able to offer health insurance at no cost to employees and their dependent children beginning in 2016.
CCHCI’s employee wellness program was additionally recognized as a “champion for the health and well-being of their employees” at the Cigna Well-Being Awards earlier this year. A video was submitted and presented at the national conference regarding the progress Chiricahua has made in employee wellness.
Chiricahua Community Health Centers, Inc. is a mission-driven Federally Qualified Health Center and is a tax exempt not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. It was founded as a grassroots community effort in 1996 as a makeshift clinic in Elfrida’s small community center and has since grown to be the largest primary care organization in southeastern Arizona. Chiricahua Community Health Center currently has seven clinics in Bisbee, Douglas, Elfrida and Sierra Vista and three mobile medical units that serve Cochise County.
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