Five years ago, Tyrone Hospital helped pull together a small group of companies to bring northern Blair County out of the health care basement: A community health assessment ranked it 63rd of 67 Pennsylvania counties in health, with obesity and diabetes the top concerns.
On the heels of that news in 2012, the hospital’s Tyrone Fitness and Wellness Center worked with the Northern Blair County Recreation Center to organize a wellness challenge involving 10 area companies, opened its expertise and gym doors to participants, and got to work.
“We are trying to highlight not necessarily weight loss but the optimal state of health,” said Murray Fetzer, director of the wellness center. “We want people to achieve healthy behavior changes. If you address that, other issues like weight fall into line.”
After the first few years, the challenge expanded to become a countywide event held through the cooperative efforts of the Healthy Blair County Coalition, the Blair County Chamber of Commerce, and all three hospitals in the county, with the northern Blair event serving as a model.
In 2017, the fourth annual Blair County Corporate Wellness Challenge features three divisions—northern, central, and southern—involving 50 companies and more than 1,000 participants. Divisional winners and a grand champion will be recognized with T-shirts, trophies, a hospital-provided lunch, and a big splash at an Altoona Curve baseball game. Winners get to throw out and catch the first pitch.
Fetzer and others focus on recruiting companies to the effort and have found a key to gaining entrants is to engage company leaders.
“If we have a CEO or a person who is a leader or a symbol in the company, they can help people get excited and get involved,” he said. Many of the firms involved provide inside-the-company-competition prizes as incentives for employees.
As host of the Northern Blair division, Tyrone Hospital can’t win the overall contest but holds interdepartmental competitions, posts scores, and offers incentives such as free access to the gym.
“As a host organization, we need to set the tone and be involved as much as anybody,” Fetzer said. “We take this seriously.”
In the lead-up to the contest, which runs from Jan. 3 to March 31, Fetzer and others helped participants with health concerns to meet with professionals to address issues that might have kept them from participating—for instance, if they’d had knee surgery or were limited by arthritis.
“Turning these folks over to our specialists helps eliminate 90 percent of why people think they can’t participate,” he said.
Northern Blair participants can use the Tyrone gym and the rec center for a mere $25 a month for three months. Additionally, a certified trainer will meet with anyone interested to develop an initial workout plan.
“We give you a personalized start,” Fetzer said. “We get people in the gym, show them how the machines work, and talk about what their goals are. We just don’t want to give anyone a reason not to do it.”
Participants receive “get started” packets, healthy recipes, and new weekly exercises, as well as updates on the progress of each company.
Last year, 613 participants lost more than 3,780 pounds. Although some employees participate not specifically to lose weight but to reduce blood pressure or cholesterol numbers, Fetzer noted the average participant loses four or five pounds and reduces his or her BMI as well.
As the company challenge grows, Fetzer’s personal challenge is to find ways to keep people engaged afterward.
“We do this at the beginning of a new year and set new goals, and we work on incentives to keep a team moving for three months,” he said. “The next level is to keep teams engaged. Walking, jogging, biking—everyone can do something different, but our next phase has to be what can we do to continue engagement with these folks.”