Biometric Screening Tool

Success Begins with Biometric Screening Data

Ready to run an effective corporate wellness program? Start with collecting biometric screening data to learn more about the health your population.

What is biometric screening?

It’s a simple way to capture specific health information about an individual or an entire organization to identify risk factors for chronic disease. In most cases, this is done with a simple blood test and blood pressure check.

A trained medical professional meets with an employee, takes a blood sample and measures blood pressure. The results can be used to identify health risks for an individual or an entire population and make lifestyle changes to improve health.

This health information is critical piece of data you need to identify health risk factors for your population and shape your wellness strategy. Data from a biometric health screening often measures:

• Blood glucose to measure risk for diabetes. Fact: About 30 million people in the U.S. have diabetes, and another 70 million have pre-diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association.
• Blood pressure (systolic/diastolic) to measure heart health and risk for cardiovascular disease. Fact: One in three adults has high blood pressure, and many don’t even know it, according to the American Heart Association.
• Body fat percentage to measure risk for overweight/obesity and chronic disease. Fact: About 70 percent of all adults are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Body Mass Index to assess risk for overweight/obesity by measuring height and weight ratio.
• Waist circumference to assess risk for abdominal fat, overweight/obesity, and diabetes. Fact: The risk for heart disease and diabetes goes up for women with a waist of 35 inches or more or greater than 40 inches for men, according to the National Institutes of Health.
• Cholesterol to measure risk for cardiovascular disease. Includes total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides. Fact: About 35 million adults in the U.S. have high cholesterol, which raises the risk for heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
• Cotinine to measure use of tobacco products. Fact: About 40 percent of all cancers are linked to tobacco use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Power of Prevention

Ten leading causes of death (including heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease) are responsible for 75 percent of all deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of these deaths result from chronic conditions, which are the most common, costly and preventable with a basic blood draw and screening.

The Biometric Screening Process: Here’s how it works:

If you want to schedule a biometric screening, you’ve got options. You can coordinate this with your own healthcare system and providers, or we can connect you with one of FitLyfe’s biometric screening vendors and network of medical professionals to conduct offsite or onsite biometric screenings.

Choose the biometric screening location

Onsite Screening

Offsite Screening

Lab Visit

Home Kit

• Onsite biometric screening. A healthcare provider comes to your office, sets up a mini doctor’s office in a private area, and meets with participants individually to complete the biometric screening. Simplify the process by allowing participants to book screening times using the FitLyfe 360 online scheduler.
• Offsite screening. Participants visit a primary care provider or designated health clinic for a basic blood draw and biometrics screening.
• Lab visit. Participants visit a designated medical laboratory that specializes in diagnostic testing for biometric screenings and other services.
• Biometric screening home kit. Participants receive a biometric screening home kit with easy-to-follow instructions to provide a blood sample for screening. Then, participants mail in the sample for lab testing and results.

Choose the biometric screening method

There’s more than one way to obtain a blood sample to complete a biometric screening. Wellness program managers frequently point to convenience and cost to decide which biometric screening method works best for their organization and population. Options include:

• Venipuncture blood draw. It’s the traditional blood draw method for the biometric screening process that’s been used for decades. A trained medical professional uses a needle to puncture a vein (usually in the arm), and take a blood sample that will be sent to a lab for analysis. If you want to give participants options to measure other biomarkers like blood glucose levels over time to measure diabetes risk or check for a vitamin D deficiency, for example, choose this option.
• Finger stick. Price and convenience have made this biometric screening method a popular choice for many wellness programs. Instead of a blood draw, a trained health professional pricks the finger of a participant for a much smaller blood sample. In many cases, it’s then analyzed on-site, and participants receive real-time results.

Get biometric screening results

Once the actual blood draw for a biometric screening is complete, get the screening results. It’s information:

• Wellness program managers need to make decisions about program management.
• Health coaches need to help participants.
• Individuals can share with their doctor to manage health conditions.

Faster results with FitLyfe

How long should you wait for lab results following the biometric screening?

A few days, a few weeks, a month? That’s not uncommon. But it slows the decision-making process to promote health, prevent disease, improve quality of life, and control healthcare costs. And it doesn’t have to be that way.

When you partner with FitLyfe for biometric screenings, FitDoc (Patent Pending) provides a real-time physician form upload process to add results to the FitLyfe 360 platform in a matter of seconds, saving time, and administrative overhead.

Keep personal health information secure

When your participants trust you with their personal health information and biometric screening data, you have a legal obligation to keep their information secure. Participant biometric screening data is maintained in a secure and private platform that is  HIPAA certified. FitLyfe also meets all compliance standards and regulations to assess health risks, provide health education, and protect personal health information.

3 Reasons Biometric Screening Data Drives Wellness Program Success

Take a look at any successful wellness program, and you’ll find biometric screening data and health risk assessment data the foundation of population health management.

When you have meaningful data about your population and wellness program participants, you’re better able to promote health, prevent disease, improve quality of life, and control healthcare costs. Biometric screening data helps you:

Make informed decisions for population health management

Biometric screening data is the easiest way to assess the health of your population. A simple blood test is all you need. The screening results help you make decisions about wellness initiatives, programming, interventions, and budgeting to improve the health of your population.

Provide meaningful data for wellness coaching

How do you help someone change behavior for better health? It’s a process Dr. James Prochaska and Dr. Carlo DiClemented describe as the Transtheoretical Model of Health Behavior Change.

t’s the behavior change model widely used by wellness coaches to help people make positive changes to diet, exercise, and lifestyle habits to feel better, reduce the risk for chronic disease, and live longer. And it starts with biometric screening results.

Biometric screening data (combined with health risk assessment data) gives a wellness coach or health coach information about a participant to ask questions, meet them where they are, guide a coaching session, and help a participant through the five stages of behavior change:

• Pre-contemplation
• Contemplation
• Preparation
• Action
• Maintenance

If someone isn’t even aware of their health risks, biometric screening data can be an easy way to help a participant start thinking about diet, physical activity, and lifestyle habits that impact their health.

Wellness managers frequently use biometric screening data as a tool to engage participants, encourage wellness and preventive exams, and help people make positive changes to be healthier, reduce the risk for chronic disease, and work through the process to develop healthy habits.

Improve health literacy for participants with personal health information

If you handed a participant their lab results from the biometric screening, would it be meaningful data? Maybe. But for many participants, it wouldn’t be useful. Why?

Only 12 percent of adults have basic health literacy, according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy. That means most people could benefit from learning more about health and wellness to better manage their own health.

When participants receive biometric screening and health risk assessment results, explain it. It’s an opportunity for you to help them help themselves, which is the best way to promote health and lasting change. Here are some ways you can do this:

• Host a pre-screening event to introduce the biometric screening, process and results
• Organize a lunch lecture to discuss biometric results in general terms
• Offer one-on-one health coaching sessions to discuss biometric data with participants
• Publish information about what biometric screening results mean on your customized FitLyfe wellness portal
• Create a FAQ guide to biometric screenings to share with your population
• Invite your participants to share biometric screening data with their primary care provider and offer wellness points as an incentive for those who do

The FitLyfe Difference

Let us help you manage the biometric screening process from start to finish. We can help you find a biometric screening provider, schedule the service, get the results, and help your participants understand what they mean with options that meet the needs and budget for most organizations. Let’s talk