Creating an Award-Winning Culture of Health and Wellbeing at DTE Energy
Creating an Award-Winning Culture of Health and Wellbeing at DTE Energy
Authors: Dr. Ray Fabius, MD, and David Kirshenbaum, MBA
A recent article published in Population Health Management highlights how DTE Energy, a Detroit-based energy company with nearly 11,000 employees — 50% of whom are field-based and 49.3% union members—transformed its workplace by fostering an award-winning culture of health and wellbeing. Co-authored by Dr. Ray Fabius and David Kirshenbaum of HealthNEXT, the case study details DTE’s strategic journey to improve employee health outcomes, enhance workplace safety, and strengthen organizational performance. Over a five-year period, DTE achieved a remarkable 75% improvement in their corporate health assessment score, demonstrating significant progress towards becoming a benchmark employer in health and wellbeing.
The Why: A Commitment to People and Purpose
DTE’s vision was rooted in doing “the right thing” for its employees, customers, and community. With a workforce initially burdened by higher-than-average health risks, DTE recognized the need for a comprehensive approach to improve employee health, safety, and engagement.
The company defined wellbeing across four dimensions: physical health, emotional wellness, social connectivity, and financial fitness. By fostering a culture of vitality and care, DTE aimed to empower its workforce and align health initiatives with broader business goals.
The How: A Strategic and Measured Approach
DTE partnered with HealthNEXT to utilize two evidence-based tools—the Employer Health Opportunity Assessment (EHOA) developed by HealthNEXT and Culture Check Site Scans offered through Virgin Pulse. The EHOA provided a top-down comprehensive overview of the organization’s maturity in fostering a culture of health and wellbeing. The Culture Check Site Scan provided a bottom-up view of individual worksites on wellbeing supportive maturity. Together, these tools provided a comprehensive view of organizational strengths and gaps in the existing culture of health and wellbeing.
The initial assessments identified 11 areas of focus to bridge the gaps and achieve best practice over a multiyear strategic plan. These were as follows:
- Embed a best-practice culture of health and wellbeing into DTE’s culture
- Develop and engage an executive committee and champion
- Enhance the workplace environment with a focus on improved nutrition
- Improve population health, including behavioral health
- Market vitality
- Integrate data and analytics
- Train consumers and advocate for them
- Design evidence-based benefits
- Expand on-site services
- Form strategic partnerships and integrate them
- Establish direct provider relationships
Using these focus areas, a comprehensive project plan was developed that included the tasks, milestones, and goals, with a transparent methodology for planning, deploying, improving, and managing over time. Over five years, this roadmap of tactics was refreshed and updated each year, building on successes and ensuring that the correct sequence was followed.
Execution was supported by robust governance structures like the Wellbeing Executive Leadership Committee and a network of 200 local Wellbeing Champions.
The Results: Transformative Impact
DTE achieved significant progress over five years:
- EHOA Score Improvement: The company’s EHOA score rose by 75%, from 386 in 2018 to 675 in 2022—approaching benchmark levels. The EHOA focuses on ten best practice pillars to evaluate a company’s culture of health and wellbeing, producing a score out of 1,000. The benchmark goal is set at 700, indicating a high standard of excellence in health and wellbeing practices. Achieving such a score signifies that DTE is nearing best practice in health and wellbeing, reflecting their significant progress towards becoming a benchmark employer in this area.
- Recognition: DTE received prestigious awards like the C. Everett Koop National Health Award, recognizing their excellence in health and wellbeing initiatives. Since its inception in 1994, only about 70 organizations have received this honor, underscoring its exclusivity and the high standards required for selection.
- Injury Reduction: Musculoskeletal injury rates declined by 36%, while workers’ compensation claims dropped significantly, highlighting improvements in workplace safety.
- Employee Engagement: By 2023, over 89% of eligible employees and their spouses participated in wellbeing programs, including health risk appraisals, biometric screenings and annual checkups.
- Vendor Management and Strategic Partnerships: There was a remarkable 310% increase in the scoring of vendor management and strategic partnerships from 2018 to 2022. This growth underscores DTE’s commitment to leveraging external expertise to enhance its health initiatives.
- Leadership Support and Management Alignment: The score of this particular pillar increased by 109%, reflecting strong leadership commitment.
Notably, employee satisfaction with wellbeing initiatives has surged, with 83% affirming that “DTE cares about my wellbeing.”
Why a Culture of Health and Wellbeing Matters for Employers
- DTE’s case demonstrates that investing in a culture of health and wellbeing delivers measurable benefits:
- Improved employee health which results in reducing healthcare costs.
- Enhanced safety and wellbeing drive performance and retention.
- Recognition as an employer of choice strengthens brand reputation.
DTE’s journey underscores that building a culture of health and wellbeing is not just an ethical imperative but also a strategic advantage. By committing to long-term planning and leveraging proven frameworks like HealthNEXT’s EHOA assessment, organizations can create sustainable change that benefits employees and the bottom line.
The Correlation of a Corporate Culture of Health Assessment Score and Health Care Cost Trend
The Correlation of a Corporate Culture of Health Assessment Score and Health Care Cost Trend
Authors: Dr. Ray Fabius, MD., Dixon Thayer, BS., David Kirshenbaum, MBA, and Dr. Jim Reynolds, MD.
Many corporate leaders who promote a culture of health and wellbeing in their organizations face challenges relating their work to tangible economic outcomes. Fortunately, research shows that as the corporate culture of health assessment scores improves, healthcare cost trends moderate.
HealthNEXT executive leaders Dr. Ray Fabius, Dixon Thayer, David Kirshenbaum, and Jim Reynolds, along with Sharon Glave Frazee, Ph.D., MPH, demonstrated a direct linear relationship between a culture of health assessment score (CHAS) and healthcare cost trends. In fact, using the HealthNEXT scoring system on a 1000-point scale; for every 50 points of improvement, there was a 1% reduction in medical trend. This research suggests that there is an immediate and sustainable impact as a company moves from getting started in this pursuit to the point of reaching a best practice score of between 700 and 750.
Read the full study, The Correlation of a Corporate Culture of Health Assessment and Health Care Cost Trend, to learn:
- How corporate health assessments can contribute to lower annual healthcare cost trends
- Examples of corporate health assessment tools
- What is an organizational culture of health
- What specific elements contribute to a healthy corporate culture
Why this study matters
Employers are challenged by what Warren Buffet has called the true corporate tax. For the last few decades, the healthcare costs of their workforce have been trending at an alarming rate of two to three times general inflation, making it difficult to provide salary raises as well as health benefits coverage.
Moreover, according to the Centers for Disease Control, chronic health conditions and unhealthy behaviors reduce worker productivity. Five chronic diseases or risk factors—high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity, and obesity—cost US employers $36.4 billion a year because of employees missing days of work.
Alternatively, healthy corporate cultures have a workforce with less illness and fewer unhealthy behaviors. As a result, employers with cultures of health and wellbeing spend less on health care without needing to reduce benefit services or shift more costs to their employees.
Purpose of the study
This study aims to determine the relationship between a corporate culture of health assessment score and annual healthcare cost trend by comparing organizations that scored higher versus those scoring lower on the culture of the health continuum.
Methods
HealthNEXT developed, validated, and implemented the Employer Health Opportunity Assessment (EHOA) and the Employer Assessment 50 (EA50) proprietary tools to score a large or mid-sized organization’s culture of health and wellbeing against the benchmark culture of health employers. Benchmark employers have flattened their health cost inflationary trend over many years. Using this score, the team then measured the correlation between CHAS and trends in healthcare expenditures.
EHOA and EA50 are proprietary tools that assess cultural health and wellbeing by analyzing data from a document review, workplace observation, and interviews with senior management, management, and employees to determine elements that contribute to a culture of health.
Study Sample
Data for this study were collected from 21 sets of annual organizational CHAS and healthcare cost trend data points from 12 unique companies.
A total increase year-over-year in total costs was measured for all monies paid to healthcare providers for the organizations’ covered population by both employers and employees. This included medical, prescription drug costs, deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance.
The team identified 21 health score assessments completed between 2011 and 2016 for organizations with available healthcare cost claim data for the same period. Data shows the average score was 459 out of a possible 1000, and the average healthcare cost trend was 5.0%
Analysis
The correlation of CHAS scores with the total healthcare cost trend was strong, and increasing CHAS scores demonstrated lower healthcare cost inflation. In 2015, U.S. healthcare spending for private health insurance increased by 7.2% per person and was projected to increase by 6.8% annually from 2017 to 2025 at the time the article was written. By just modestly improving the culture of health by 50 points out of 1000, the 1% decrease in annual healthcare trends would produce a per-member decrease in healthcare costs of $3999 over a ten-year period.
By implementing best practices, this research implies that it is now possible for employers, large and mid-sized, to control their medical spending and reduce the aggregate health risks and illness burden of their most important asset – their people. Additionally, it is worth noting that other studies referenced in this article calculate that for every dollar saved in direct health care costs, employers save an extra $2.30 in improved performance or productivity.