Program Description

The Park Nicollet Health Education Program (PNHEP) is the comprehensive community, worksite and patient health education program of the Park Nicollet Medical Foundation that has provided cost effective, risk reduction services to hundreds of companies and thousands of patients since 1974. PNHEP provides company employees and patients with health screening and health risk appraisals for early detection of illness, incentive systems for increasing participation in programs, and health education programs with documented effectiveness in reducing health care costs, increasing knowledge and changing behavior.

The Health Education Center has aligned its services to complement the medical guidelines development activities of the Institute for Clinical Systems Integration (ICSI), a consortium of Park Nicollet, Health Partners, Group Health and Mayo working together on continuous quality improvement teams. PNHEP and ICSI, both founded by Dr. James Reinertsen, serve the Business Health Care Action Group (BHCAG), a buyers coalition of over 20 large employers in the Twin Cities. (1) By linking health education programs with the medical guidelines developed by major health care providers, we have increased participation in preventive health screening, improved hypertension management outcomes and reduced health care costs through consumer self-care.

In addition to providing evaluation services for BHCAG companies separately, we surveyed the population of companies collectively in order to compare the health status of employees between companies. Survey findings are being used to link health risks with employee medical claims experience and plan for further cost-effective interventions.