Early Thursday afternoon, Clara Barrios walked off the chicken-nugget production line at the Perdue Foods cooking plant and headed to her doctor’s office for a quick check-in.
She didn’t clock out or leave the plant grounds, and in less time than most people wait to be seen at a doctor’s office, she’d been checked out and was back at work. And the whole process didn’t cost her a penny.
Barrios, a Grottoes resident who’s worked with Perdue for 14 years, made a quick visit to the on-site wellness center at the plant. She didn’t lose any work time while off the line because Perdue allows employees to remain clocked in while at the center.
She paid nothing because Perdue eliminated the $15 co-pay for associates on Jan. 1. That, company spokesman Joe Forsthoffer said, was the final barrier to employee care.
“For me it’s the best because when we feel something, like a stomach ache or headache, it’s pronto care,” said Barrios, 58, after a nurse checked her out. “We don’t need to wait.”
Opened in 2005, the wellness center has become the primary care office for many of the plant’s more than 500 employees and some of their family members; dependents can see its doctors for a $15 co-pay. Workers can be seen for routine care, chronic issues, physicals, OB/GYN services, prenatal care and physical therapy.
One of its programs is credited with improving worker health significantly, and in several instances the on-site medical staff probably has saved lives.
Improved wellness, director of operations Kenny Lambert said, has enhanced employee lives and reduced the number of days they miss work.
“Those associates come over here — they’re diabetic or have heart disease or they’re a tobacco user — if we can get them on the right path, they’re healthier in the long term,” he said, “and that comes back to you in days worked.”
Health Improvements
Perdue’s wellness center program, Forsthoffer explained, grew out of a real need employees had at its Lewiston, N.C., plant.
Absenteeism was high a little over 20 years ago, and plant officials asked why. They learned employees often took the whole day off because they traveled 90 minutes for doctor’s appointments. The manager brought a doctor on-site, employees embraced the offering, and the experiment grew into the company’s first wellness center.
Now, Perdue’s large facilities with the exception of recent acquisitions on the West Coast have wellness centers. Forsthoffer said the company’s health care costs have dropped as they were instituted.
The Bridgewater center is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it remains open until 5:30 p.m.
Tina Kuykendall, the nurse who supervises the center, has two other nurses on-hand and a bilingual nurse who speaks Spanish and is brought in as needed, all on Perdue’s payroll. A doctor, a nurse practitioner and a certified midwife work as independent contractors, as does the massage therapist brought in three days a week.
Though the company pays for the center, Forsthoffer said it has no access to employee health information and no say in their medical care.
The wellness center is a key component of Perdue’s Health Improvement Program, which Kuykendall said 90 percent of employees participate in.
A health assessment is done with each, and they’re scored on a 5-point scale based on their physical fitness and lifestyle and given health-improvement tips.
When the program started in 2005 or 2006, she said, the plant average score was in the 2.5 to 2.6 range. Now, it’s up to 4.09.
“We’ve had people who have been very, very sick and not known it,” Lambert said, “and the HIP program has detected it and allowed us to intervene, educate, guide, and people have changed their lifestyle and their lives have changed because of it.”
‘Ingenious Idea’
Kristie Johnson, a nurse practitioner who began working at the center in September, said Perdue’s program makes a major difference in the lives of many employees, including some who come from other countries and have never seen a physician.
The employees appreciate having access to medical care, something they might never have sought if the center weren’t so easy to access.
“I think it’s an ingenious idea because what they’re trying to do is keep their employees healthy,” she said. “They’re providing a facility on-site that can provide employees primary, occupational and acute health care without missing time from work, and the core value is also achieved, which is to maintain health and wellness for their employees.”
In addition to wellness improvements, the center probably has saved lives.
A sick woman recently was brought from the lines to the center in a wheelchair and immediately was sent to the emergency room. She wound up being flown to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where doctors prevented an aneurysm from killing her.
Other employees have had life-threatening conditions diagnosed at the wellness center in time to prevent a major health emergency.
“If you have someone come in that’s at risk of a heart attack and have an intervention, that’s a potential multimillion-dollar savings,” Forsthoffer said. “If you can intervene and reduce the risk of a premature birth, that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings, not to mention the human cost of that.”
Employees schedule appointments, but they’re also allowed to head over when they don’t feel well or when they start to feel a possible repetitive-stress injury. Supervisors, Lambert said, even send workers over when their performance seems a bit off.
The wellness center’s staff typically sees 15 to 18 people a day, Kuykendall said. That number is rising, though, since the co-pay has been lifted.
Forsthoffer said on-site medical care has helped shift health care at the plant to a proactive instead of a reactive exercise, and it’s changed the culture in the workplace.
“The wellness center and HIP shifts the emphasis,” he said. “Our focus is on health and prevention first instead of taking care of folks when they’re sick.”