CHS Announces Sponsorship of Groundbreaking Market Research with Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University; New Workforce Health Model To Identify Health Risks and Greatly Impact Client Health Care Savings.

VIENNA, Va. -- Comprehensive Health Services (CHS), a nationwide occupational health and wellness services company, today announced the sponsorship of groundbreaking new research with Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University that will develop a workforce health assessment model quantifying workforce health risks, their consequences and costs. The research will benefit companies nationwide in selecting cost-effective strategies to reduce long-term health risks and workforce health costs.

"Applying a comprehensive workforce approach is something that's never been done, even though organizations of all types have been clamoring for a way to control healthcare costs," said Mel Hall, CEO of CHS. "It is a cost-effective strategy with a predictive model that will mean great things for our clients. And with some brilliant minds working on these issues, this assessment model can impact a company's ability to be proactive about workforce health."

The sponsorship includes infrastructure and the creation of research facilities, including the Mel Hall Preventive Health Lab. The project will utilize various data from major sources including the CDC, AHRQ and the Bureau of Labor Statistics on conditions, diseases, and other health data, and centralize them into one common database. The data will then be used to select cost-effective strategies that reduce long-term health risks and workforce health costs while minimizing the impact on productivity.

"We want to bring information together for more effective decision-making to reduce health costs since current decision-making is decentralized," said Francois Sainfort, Director, Health Systems Institute (HSI). "With the industry information we gather, we hope to predict how companies could cut their health care costs with new health program strategies."

The team of ten professors and students includes two Georgia Tech HSI professors, two professors from the Emory School of Public Health, and two consultants. The team also includes four Ph.D. students: three from Georgia Tech HSI and one from the Emory School of Public Health.

"The information and data are out there, but there are pockets of important information that aren't combined and organized," added Sainfort. "Some smaller studies have tried estimating condition-specific impacts, but no studies exist that encapsulate everything." He further explained that current cost analyses focus on financial costs without adequately addressing health costs. The outcomes analyses focus on treatment and mitigation of the consequences of health risks as well as risk prevention and reduction.

Employee health risks and conditions will be analyzed based on critical individual demographics and behaviors as well as job and industry characteristics, including demographic data, health behaviors, type of industry and occupation. The team will explore the relationship between health risk factors, such as environmental and behavioral factors, and health conditions, such as diseases and injuries, and will focus on risks and conditions most relevant to working populations.

The project will reconcile large amounts of data and information from multiple, disparate sources using predictive modeling and forecasting to give a more accurate assessment. It will use a Bayesian modeling approach and possibly others to combine empirical risk data and subjective expert knowledge.

By next spring, the team plans to have created a practical, predictive model that consists of risks, conditions, and costs components. After further testing and adjustments, a functional product that can be used by companies should be available in the summer.

About CHS

Founded in 1975, CHS is a nationwide leader in the design, implementation and management of outsourced occupational health and wellness programs. Serving Fortune 1000 corporations and the largest federal agencies, CHS delivers customized solutions for maintaining a healthier, more stable and productive workforce. With in-house medical professionals, a national network of CHS-certified physicians and health care providers, and a proactive approach fortified by a time-tempered foundation of best practices, CHS partners with its customers to provide flexible, performance-based workforce wellness and health programs that result in bottom line benefits across the organization. A member of the Founder's Circle of the Occupational and Environmental Health Foundation, CHS also is a charter sponsor of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) Corporate Health Achievement Award. For more information, visit the CHS web site at www.chsmedical.com.