Jump to full article: Albert Lea (MN) Tribune, 2009-08-19
Author: Jason Schoonover * Albert Lea Tribune
Intro: The AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project is about making the healthy choice the easy choice, and local business representatives learned how they can make it an easy choice for their employees to quit smoking.
“It’s still a leading cause of illness and death in America, and it’s preventable. It is an addiction and a very challenging thing,” said Joel Spoonheim, director of health initiatives with Blue Zones.
Kelli Thielges, Wellness Manager, Schwan’s Shared Services LLC, spoke Tuesday in the Freeborn Room of the Freeborn County Government Center about Schwan’s policy to prohibit smoking on company property. She also spoke about the businesses partnership with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota to provide employee assistance programs and nicotine replacement therapy to all employees to help them quit smoking.
Thielges said she turned to her father, a former smoker, for advice to get the project going. He told her most smokers want to quit.
Her father said he wanted to quit for three reasons: expense, family and his workplace banned indoor smoking.
Since he couldn’t smoke indoors at work, it was an extra inconvenience to go outside.
But the biggest motivation was to his grandchildren . . .
From a business perspective, Thielges said the initiative needed to be profitable, and she said she tells management the program pays for itself. She estimated the program cost $155,000 and the cost savings were estimated to be about $222,743 — a net savings of $70,743.
In 2008, 699 employees were enrolled in the tobacco cessation program, and in 2007, 86 were enrolled in the program the entire year, Thielges said. Six months into the program, 119 of 699 said they had not used tobacco in the previous 30 days, she said.
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