An Expert Interview With - MyBioCheck

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An Expert Interview With

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ABOUT DAN O’FLAHERTY, VP Sales, TRALE, Inc. Dan O’Flaherty, known by many as DanO’, has thrived in the health and wellness Industry for more than 30 years. He has spent the last 15 years focusing on health risk assessment tools, and was formerly an owner/operator of several health food stores. DanO’ left the “corporate world” of marketing and moved his family to the Pacific Northwest to run his own health food store and an Internet Café that served up “smart drinks,” vegetable and fruit juices. DanO’ also worked for GNC—operating 55 corporate locations in the Northwest—and was instrumental in implementing touch screen monitors in every store. The GNC monitors had easily attainable health and wellness information for consumers in order to help them make wiser choices. When he left GNC he wanted to find an industry that linked new technologies to health and wellness and came across health risk assessments. DanO’ saw wellness becoming the wave of the future and realized the link between people improving their health and—at the time—a new thing called, “The Internet.” He joined TRALE to link this new craze (the Internet) to helping people gain better health—and has been the West Coast anchor for TRALE’s product lines ever since..

An Expert Interview with

TRALE, Inc.

ABOUT DAVID HUNNICUTT, PhD Dr. David Hunnicutt is the President of the Wellness Council of America. As a leader in the field of health promotion, his vision has led to the creation of numerous publications designed to link health promotion objectives to business outcomes.

ABOUT MADELINE JAHN, MOL Madeline Jahn is the Director of Communications for the Wellness Council of America. She has a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership from the College of Saint Mary, and leverages her communication and management skills to bring WELCOA publications to life. Her role at WELCOA is to coordinate the development of new publications and pool existing resources for members. Through writing, planning and editing support, she is a key contributor to the team that makes WELCOA’s core services a reality. Madeline works closely with numerous national experts, authors and contributors from the field to share their important information with WELCOA members. For questions about this or any of WELCOA’s publications, please contact Maddy at [email protected].

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or more than 20 years, the Wellness Council of America has been dedicated to providing its members with the very best tools and resources for building results-oriented wellness programs. As part of this mission, we feature a network of Premier Providers to help familiarize health promotion practitioners with the increasing array of products and services available to them. The Premier Provider Network (PPN) Interview series is designed to give you a better understanding of each Premier Provider’s background, philosophy, products and services— and how you might utilize their offerings to strengthen your employee wellness initiative. In this exclusive Premier Provider Interview, you’ll find in-depth information about TRALE, Inc., a leading wellness vendor in the field of worksite health. TRALE specializes in building customized health risk assessment (HRA) tools. Their options include standalone or online tools that offer cutting-edge technology, comprehensive reporting and robust data mining capabilities. TRALE’s products are designed to help you improve the health of your employees and members—and reduce medical costs and claims at the same time. Instead of the “one-size-fits-all” HRA products that are common in the industry, TRALE provides both online portals and portable on-site HRA tools.

Health Screenings Made Simple Making sense of your workforce’s health has never been easier or more convenient. TRALE’s MyBioCheck® is a revolutionary biometric health risk assessment application developed specifically for the Apple iPad.

Check it out today! https://mybiocheck.com/features/

Reading a copy? Madeline Jahn: Please tell us a little bit about TRALE and how the company got its start?

Download the original article at: http://www.welcoa.org/freeresources/ index.php?category=16

Dan O’Flaherty: In the year 2000, several of the current principals in our Indiana-based company realized that there was a need in the marketplace for a truly customized and fully branded health risk assessment product. And so they commenced on a platform that would allow companies of all shapes and sizes to brand their own paper-based and online health risk assessment (HRA) tools. MJ: What’s been your role in the development of the organization? DO: About 10 years ago, TRALE was looking for a Vice President of Sales. I actually came to TRALE after my position as VP of Sales at WellSource. At that time, TRALE was a start-up, and right away, I believed in their vision of fully customizing and branding HRA tools. They were looking for someone with sales experience in the wellness industry. TRALE was started to fill a market niche because, at the time, no one was really customizing or branding HRA tools. TRALE’s main office is in Daleville, Indiana, and I started the West Coast office in Portland, Oregon. www.welcoa.org

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MJ: What are the core components and services that TRALE offers?

TRALE Report Cards: Better Grades = Better Health The MyBioCheck® Report Card explains in simple language what health screening values mean and why they are important. It provides simple but effective action items so your employees can improve their grades–and their health.

Visit TRALE to see all their HRA products!

DO: Most people know us for our online and paper-based HRA tools, and that remains our core competency. But lately, we’ve also realized that biometric screening companies were lacking a data collection device for their screenings and participants were walking away with very little information. So we tied the two together and introduced the iPad application, MyBioCheck®. MyBioCheck® is an easy-to-use biometric application created specifically for screening companies and health coaching organizations. It allows screeners to efficiently analyze participant’s biometric values, demonstrate the benefits of behavior change, and provides real time feedback in the form of easy-tounderstand report cards using letter grades. With this app, the company will receive an aggregate report card as well. So leaders like the CEO or the benefit director can clearly identify the health strengths and deficiencies of the entire company or group. This means they’ll will receive an actual letter grade on their employee population’s cholesterol or blood pressure or other biometric data that’s collected. The report card theme linked with our biometric iPad application is one of our current main focuses.

http://www.trale.com/

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MyBioCheck® is an easy-to-use biometric application created specifically for screening companies and health coaching organizations.

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MJ: How did the report card feature come about—and how has that been received? DO: It occurred to us that there were several biometric screening companies giving out “Wellness Scores” or “Real Age” type numbers, but the average individual has a hard time understanding those benchmarks. We realized that no one was utilizing a concept that we all know and understand—report cards! Using letter grade report cards for individuals and companies is a very simple concept: “better grades equals better health.” We all remember grades. You either really look forward to your results or not, but beyond that…we all knew how to improve them, didn’t we? The report card over-simplifies the self-reported HRA without using any selfreported numbers—it’s all based on real biometrics a screening event. The iPad is the screener’s tool so the screener will see numbers from perhaps from a Cholestech, Cardio Check or blood pressure monitoring, etc. The screener enters the numbers into the iPad, and the report card for the individual can be instantly sent to a printer. And so the individual walks out the door a one-page Report Cardwith changes REPORT CARD that’s printed and folds like a booklet. The individual can take that report card home to their spouse, for instance, and say “look, honey, I’ve got a C on my cholesterol, but I got an A on my weight and a D on my glucose level.” For the individual, the report card grades help start an internal discussion about what they can do after the screening to set and achieve improvement goals for certain areas of their health—or for the next screening. Metabolic Syndrome language is displayed if option is activated within profile edit view and screening criteria are meet.

The screener enters the numbers into the iPad, and the report card for the individual can be instantly sent to a printer the individual walks out the door with a one-page REPORT CARD that’s printed landscape and folds like a booklet. The individual can take that report card home to their spouse, for instance, and say ‘look, honey, I’ve got a C on my cholesterol, but I got an A on my weight and a D on my glucose level.’

More than 5,000 U.S. Companies Are WELCOA Members WELCOA’s member benefits include the tools, information and resources you need to build effective, results-oriented wellness programs—programs that help you better contain costs, improve employee health and increase engagement in your workplace wellness initiatives.

See what the WELCOA Nation is all about—visit: www.welcoa.org/member/benefits.php

Reading a copy? Download the original article at: http://www.welcoa.org/freeresources/ index.php?category=16

The screening date can now be changed directly on the rendered report card.

This can be used for those instances where you data enter the biometrics after an event, but you want the event date to be the screening date shown on the report card.

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MJ: What kind of results and outcomes have your clients experienced with the new MyBioCheck® app?

WELCOA Membership Is Just $1 A Day Get all the training and resources you need to build a successful, results-oriented workplace wellness program and improve employee health! Join the nation’s premier resource for workplace wellness.

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DO: The big picture would be that people love grades; that grades are kind of fun because the concept brings an understandable element into the workplace wellness arena. Not only do the employees love getting grades and comparing their grades amongst their peers, but the company can compare its grades against other companies. Even departments within a large company can compare grades—so manufacturing might go up against trucking for example, and then it becomes a spirited competition, (i.e. “We got better grades than you did”). This product has become a very understandable scoring mechanism for employees and companies as a whole. We’ve had great feedback from our clients.

“I love MyBioCheck®! It is easy to use…and the response has been wonderful. People want a better understanding of what their test results mean and MyBioCheck® gives them that.” — Mary E. Whitt Employee Benefit Specialist at Cobalt Benefits, Inc.

“We recently purchased the MyBioCheck® system in the form of three iPads with apps for use in our hospital wellness program…and screened 1,250 of our employees/spouses. They loved the speed of delivery of their results in the form of the report card. We like the ease of inputting the info. Thank you TRALE for helping us so much!” — Brenda Engle Director of Healthworks at White County Medical Center, Searcy, AR

“MyBioCheck® has made our health screening process efficient, and our staff was able to learn the app very quickly. The grade point scoring system is very well received by our participants.” — Vanessa Serkowski Client Services Coordinator at Sensia Healthcare

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MJ: What types and sizes of companies and organizations are the right fit for TRALE’s services? DO: Onsite health screening groups and health coaching groups that have access to real biometric numbers are perfect for MyBioCheck®. But we have many sizes and types of companies using our online and paper-based HRAs—for instance, benefit consultants, corporate wellness consultants, insurance organizations, EAPs, PPOs and HMOs utilize the TRALE HRA platform as well as the new MyBioCheck® app. We really have no limits or set parameters around the size of groups we’ll work with. In fact, we’ve made the process very simple, so that MyBioCheck® is very cashflow-friendly for smaller organizations too. From small shops to global presences, organizations of any size and type can quickly and efficiently collect, analyze and report biometric data from their workforce with MyBioCheck®.

WELCOA Created The First Social-Network For Workplace Wellness Professionals! SWELL—a social network for the WELCOA Nation—is a new member benefit for 2012! SWELL is a tool that connects practitioners and professionals across

Using letter grade report cards for individuals and companies is a very simple concept: ‘better grades equals better health.’

the country—to share their ques-

MJ: What does the future hold for TRALE?

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DO: Well, our core competencies will always be our branded and customized health risk assessment tools. We won’t get away from that, but we have to stay ahead of the curve and work ahead with mobile technology and other cuttingedge information technologies. The goal is to really follow the consumer in how they’re accessing information. For example, we’ve found that the iPad is just an amazing tool, which offers flexibilities that software programs and web-services had once only dreamed of. Our software programs can be updated as simply as when you update an app on your phone. So we’re able to add features to MyBioCheck® on the fly and those are instantly available to all of our customers.

tions, challenges and secrets for success. Learn from the collective wisdom of the WELCOA Nation when you connect and share with other WELCOA members on SWELL!

www.welcoa.org


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MJ: If an organization wanted to get started using MyBioCheck® or any of TRALE’s services, what would the process look like? How do they get started?

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DO: First of all, you can review our services at the new www.Trale.com and see product features or view our new video at www.mybiocheck.com. We constantly update our sites with current information on our products. Then it’s really as simple as scheduling a demo with me or my staff. You can email me at dano@ trale.com to schedule a demo and review your needs. Then we’ll get back to you with a quote, and from there we train you to get you off and running.

designed to help you build and sustain results-oriented wellness programs. Each session, conducted by an expert in the field, is offered in a convenient webinar that allows you to take part in the nation’s premier worksite wellness training from the comfort of your office!

Check out WELCOA’s webinar schedule at: www.welcoa.org/consulttrain/about.php


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If you want to learn more, you can certainly request information from me or my staff. On our websites we have covered every avenue that you’re looking for—things like security and confidentiality, all the HIPAA and high-tech security measures, validity, and where do we get our numbers. TRALE covers all those bases and stays focused on health risk assessment and wellness tools, so organizations can concentrate on what they do best: bringing wellness and change to their own employees and communities.

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MJ: Can you provide some examples of TRALE’s customizable features? DO: TRALE’s report cards are very popular and that’s what we think people need, but for some clients, we do have the ability to change the letter grades to emoticons or gradicons. These are presented as little smiley faces that go down to frowns. We’re able to sell this product in Canada and overseas in areas that don’t use letter grades. Also, we offer this in Spanish and in metric conversion.

WELCOA’s Well Workplace Model Offers Results The ultimate goal of WELCOA

We’re adding new flexibilities all the time, for instance, customized consent form apps that can be signed with your finger onsite to eliminate paper trails. We’re tying in blood pressure and cholesterol machines to MyBioCheck® so that they can update in real time. You could have five iPads at one screening event and they’ll share information in real time—and all of it is encrypted and secure. This smoothes out the screening process for both the screening company and organization involved.

membership is to help you suc-

We also have the HealthTweaker™ enables the health coach/screener to show an individual in real time how they could improve their grades. Simply tapping on one of the graphs in a live report card will activate the HealthTweaker™ for that section. HealthTweaker™ adjusts corresponding grades and grade points in real time to show what an improvement in one area—let’s say in HDL—will do to the individual’s overall health. For smokers, HealthTweaker™ would immediately show the huge improvement of not smoking. As an example, you could tap on “smoke” and then tap on “don’t smoke,” so the individual can see how their grade would easily go from a C to a B.

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cessfully design and implement results-oriented wellness programs. Using the proven WELCOA Well Workplace Model and patented Seven Benchmarks approach, your organization will get America’s Healthiest Companies.

Read more about WELCOA’s approach at: www.welcoa.org/wellworkplace


HealthTweaker™ enables the health coach/screener to show an individual in real time how they could improve their grades.

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