As the year 2021 winds down, we want to review many of the healthcare issues that affected us over the past twelve months. While the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated health care news for almost 2 years, BioIQ has covered this and many other important health topics and supported a number of awareness initiatives in 2021 – everything from men’s and women’s health awareness, return-to-work strategies, and the deferred care crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
2021 has been a year of tremendous growth for BioIQ. We set new milestones, partnered with numerous new Fortune 500 clients, expanded our base of partners, and received several awards including being named one of Deloitte’s 500 Fastest Growing Companies in North America.
If this year has one overarching theme, it is, do not to skip your preventative and routine screenings and tests.
We have discussed this topic from numerous angles: the importance of routine well-visits for adults and children, staying up to date on vaccinations and immunizations, ways to be sure that you are understanding your health care, and, from an employer’s perspective, how to return to work safely.
As the new year is rapidly approaches, now is a great time to think about how we can better ourselves in the coming months and have a healthy 2022. In line with the theme of managing your health well, following is a recap on some of the most helpful and productive tips we covered this year:
- Make sure that your mental health is good. Feelings of fear, worry, sadness, loneliness, and a general feeling of anxiety has driven many Americans into depression since the start of the pandemic. Now it is more important than ever to reach out to loved ones about these feelings. If you are experiencing similar emotions yourself, it is never too late to ask for help or seek out a professional.
- Re-examine your health and get back on track with your preventative and routine screenings. With the COVID-19 vaccine being widely available, now is the time to get back to those annual check-ups and set appointments for those preventative screenings.
- Stay up to date with vaccinations and immunizations. Overall vaccinations dropped 14 percent in 2020-2021 compared to 2019. The best way to prevent disease in adults and children is to be proactive and stay up to date on the recommended vaccinations and immunizations from your doctor.
- For employers, create and follow a strategy engaging employees as they return to the in-person work environment. Establish systems and protocols to foster confidence and peace of mind for the workforce and public. Base these protocols on the evolving scientific findings, considering research and recommendations from global, federal, state, and local authorities. Apply these protocols in a scalable, user-friendly manner to achieve success in back-to-work initiatives.
- For health plans, set goals to close health literacy gaps. Raise awareness about gaps in health literacy. Make it easier for participants to obtain health information and make better decisions concerning their health.
These are just a few of the points we addressed this year. To read more on any of these subjects you can do so by checking out our blog library, here. If you are a health plan, enterprise company, or government agency, and want to know more about how we can partner in 2022, to help your workforce or member population become more proactive about their health, contact us here.
Thank you to all who are on this journey with us.
Happy holidays and have a happy and healthy New Year and 2022.