Oklahoma City , OK , August 22, 2005 – Inner Reach Corporation launched its Prevention Building Self-assessment Initiative (PBSI) as a tool for corporations’ trying to get their ‘arms around’ employee health care problems and skyrocketing costs. The PBSI emphasizes three areas: overweight and obesity related diseases, decreasing unnecessary doctor office visits, and mental health self-assessment through HiGS, the Inner Reach Health Information Gathering System. The goal of the PBSI is to provide a starting point for these complicated problems enabling employees with access to HiGS to have knowledge about these areas and to make better choices for prevention and health preservation rather than waiting until they get sick.
Employees whose companies provide the HiGS system can gather relevant health information for themselves, beginning with their histories and focusing on overweight and obesity related diseases which are: hypertension, heart disease, stroke, type II diabetes, osteoarthritis, gallbladder problems, endometrial cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, inflammation, and chronic diseases. Inner Reach refers to these as the Dangerous Dozen diseases that people usually bring upon themselves through excess weight, bad choices, and lack of knowledge. HiGS is pivotal to their changing that.
The Inner Reach CEO, Constance Fitzpatrick, PhD, RN, explains, “These dozen health problems are enormously costly to companies in health care expenses, lost productivity, and lost revenues, and to people’s lives. Type II diabetes alone costs a company on average an additional $1,400 for each employee who has it. Seventy-percent of all type II diabetes, a preventable and reversible disease, is due to overweight and obesity resulting from lack of knowledge and people’s bad choices.”
The three target mental health areas of the PBSI are: depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances with self-assessments for each available on the HiGS website. These three areas were selected because these issues affect the broadest number of people and cause the greatest mental health related absenteeism costs for employers. Providing a means for being proactive through gathering specific information relevant to the individual, the Inner Reach HiGS enables self-knowledge for prevention and health preservation which keeps cost down. Dr Fitzpatrick says, “Why manage diseases we can prevent? Why not keep them from happening in the first place.” HiGS can be found at one of the company’s web sites at: www.higshealth.com Contact: William R. Souder, Senior Director of Corporate Sales at bsouder@innerreach.com.
About the Company:
Inner Reach leads the way in personal centered health information gathering. In the center of the country and located in various states, the Inner Reach teams deliver the HiGS , technology, products, seminars, training, and materials for its health customers. Inner Reach created a new standard for individual centered e-health delivery through a prevention and early detection health psychology model integrated into HiGS . The health psychology model considers the total person in mind-body balance and all aspects of a person’s vitality and well-being. Their health psychology technology company teams are driven to make a difference. HiGS can be found on one of the company web sites at: www.higshealth.com