Earndit

ccotstanza12

For the past couple of years my hospital has been a part of the Move and Improve program online to try to motivate employees to exercise more/ at all. I have lead the teams (we're supposed to compete amongst teams thought the organization) the past two years but have found the only folks who join are those who already work out regularly. I am looking for a way too motivate other members of my practice to participate. I did a quick google search and came across "earndit". I know there are other programs out there too, just wondering if any one has had success with these kinds of things motivating those at their work place.

Here's the link: http://earndit.com

Any other suggestions would be great. I am known as the "fitness nut" at work, so it's hard to find a common line in this area with overweight coworkers.

Thanks!

Michele Cellai

Claire-

A quick perusal of Earnedit reveals that it is hooked in with the most common workout sites. Again it is going to attract folks that workout.

The real question you are asking is the same one asked by thousands of healthcare providers- how do we encourage folks to exercise and improve their health?

There is no great answer and no one answer. You will need a variety of approaches. From a wellness program where they have regular BP/ weight screening and can see the results, to something like Earnedit. How are the current programs structured? My company gave EVERYONE a pedometer. We all turned in our daily and weekly totals. it was no real extra work because we were walking around anyway. But it did wake up some folks to how little they moved, others how much. 

Bottomline- you are fighting the usual uphill battle.Something that I am trying to get my head around for a doctorate thesis.

carls10

They used pedometers at my last place of employment. It was a game where points were earned for the amount of steps walked.

Tom Glynn

My wife bought herself and our three kids a fun little device called Up. https://jawbone.com/up. You wear it like a bracelet and it acts like a pedometer and few other other fun things. It tracks steps per day, measures the amount of sleep. vibrates if you have been sitting for some predetermined amount of time. They also set up a family group to see what everyone else is doing. It's really got the kids motivated to make sure they are moving. The 7 year old just got an email stating he was in the top 10% of all users for activity. Totally stoked. My wife, who sits in meetings most of her life, is continually being zapped for not moving in more than an hour. The two young boys note when my college age daughter falls asleep and let me know every morning that she din't go to bed until well past midnight and only got 5 hours sleep. Very eye opening and done in a fun way.

The devices aren't perfect and we've had to send a couple back for replacements, but it really has been worth it.

Coach Patrick

I think the biggest (no pun intended) problem here is that fitness or wellness means so many different things for different people. Some are inspired to move, others to change what they eat, others to do yoga, etc. My vision for this is like a trivial pursuit game piece with different pieces of the pie. Anyone can play and they have one of six different areas to choose from: diet, sleep, exercise, whatever else you come up with....the goal is to get them to do one of those things for X times, etc....

okay I made that up...but you get the idea!

Now back to my chocolate peanut butter hearts!

ccotstanza12

Thanks for the thoughts!

Move and Improve is a program my hospital started in Eastern Maine and has spread to the rest of the state where individuals/teams record their daily time spent "moderately" exercising. Like I mentioned, it's great to get people who are already in that contemplative/preparation stage to the active stage of motivation, but I'm not sure a lot of these people are in that stage yet. In fact, I think Coach P is right on the money; it's not just about exercising, it's about all the healthier decisions each day we can make.

I think pedometers and the Up devices would be a great place to start, but without funding from the institution, I'm not sure that would happen. I'm not sure my practice is in a position to fund that right now. I would definitely be willing to look into it though.

All this being said, I am thinking of maybe an intra-practice competition where people make their own goal and try to achieve their own goal. Seems like it might be the most successful, all-inclusive approach.