Our tagline, “Good health is good business,” was never more poignant to me than last Thursday when I attended my first health fair. LifeHealth was on site with an employer while they hosted a health fair for their employees. I expected a health fair to be a somewhat sedate experience, but when I entered the fair on Thursday, I thought I was at a social event. People were laughing and getting massages, cool swag was doled out, and lots of happy conversation about good health was overheard.

During this lively event, LifeHealth provided cholesterol tests with their state-of-the-art Cholestech machine. This machine uses the finger prick method, whereby one of our friendly medical staff members administers what looks like a tiny pin into your finger. It takes a sample in the blink of an eye and reads out results in six minutes.

Harvard Medical School recently reported that raising your “good” cholesterol is as important as lowering your “bad” cholesterol. They go on to say that for years now, everyone’s attention has been on the bad cholesterol, but good cholesterol (HDL or high-density lipoprotein) particles act as scavengers to take away fat from arterial walls before it becomes embedded into plaque.

The Cholestech results that LifeHealth administers translate into actionable information that our nursing staff can relay to employees and counsel them about behavior changes to raise good cholesterol. Even though I had talked about the Cholestech machine and written about it, it was really gratifying to see an employee get their finger pricked (with a smile, I might add) and sit down with one of our nurse practitioners minutes later to discuss the results and how best to proceed with an action plan. For the modest investment this employer made in one afternoon for its employees, the staff is going to better manage their personal health and, consequently, their life and career.

 

LifeHealth certified medical assistant Katrina Schutte
and registered nurse Nancy Komatz pause
for a photo at a recent health fair.