We used a similar sleep problem screening tool and provided local sleep medicine practitioners and clinic resources to our workforce so they could get the help they needed for their sleep problems. The feedback about the screening tool was very encouraging. A surprising (maybe not surprising given the estimated 40% prevalence of sleep problems noted in last month’s FMN blog) number of our staff said things like:

"I didn’t realize that my sleep was problematic, but it does explain why my energy keeps dropping year after year.”

“My sleep has slowly deteriorated over the years and I didn’t take note of how bad it was until I completed the sleep problem screening tool.”

“I am so glad I followed through after completing the screening tool. The sleep doctor treated my issue and within a week I was feeling 20 years younger, thanks for providing the screener!”

Although feedback like this suggests we made a positive difference and reduced fatigue-related risks in our organization, it is difficult to use it as data for trend tracking. We had to think a little outside the box to come up with something we could measure to see how successful the sleep problem screening tool was as a sleep and fatigue management strategy. We didn’t want the extra work of tracking a new key performance metric and we wanted to stay aligned with the approach of the screening tool, which was to maintain our workers’ anonymity. Instead of asking our workforce questions in a survey like “Did you seek help for a sleep problem after using the screening tool?” and “Was your sleep problem successfully treated?”, we used what the Sleep & Fatigue Specialist, Clinton Marquardt, taught us about Hidden Benefits of sleep and fatigue management during the training he provided to our management team.

Research indicates that a large percentage of sick leave can be attributed to sleep problems, and we know that when people are sick, they make health insurance claims for medications and other treatments. We have been tracking these metrics for years, but because we have never correlated them with any sleep and fatigue management initiatives, we thought they would be excellent hidden benefits to track this time around. Sure, there was a little extra work because we had to coordinate the measurement of these hidden benefits with the timing of providing the sleep problem screening tool, but it was a lot less work than devising new performance metrics.

We were hoping to see a drop in both the number of sick leave days and the number of health insurance claims for medications and treatments after we provided the sleep problem screening tool to our whole workforce. But, what we found surprised us! When we compared the sick leave days and health insurance claims for the month before we deployed the screening tool to the month after, we found they both increased! It wasn’t until the end of the second month that both metrics started to drop. We guessed that the increased sick leave during the first month was due to people finally realizing their sleep was poor and that they could take sick leave to recover from a bad night of sleep or use sick leave to attend medical appointments to have their sleep problems addressed. We also guessed that the increased health insurance claims were due to people getting treatments for the sleep problems to which they were alerted by the screening tool.

By the end of the second month, both the number of sick leave days and number of health insurance claims started to show a downward trend. Here’s the other amazing surprise, the downward trend continued for 7 months until it plateaued below the numbers recorded during the month before we provided the sleep problem screening tool! Three months later and our numbers are still showing that we are doing better than before the sleep problem screening tool deployment.

Although the desired results were delayed, in hindsight they make sense. It takes time for people to seek help for sleep problems and get treated. It takes a little more time for people’s sleep to improve after treatment and for their immune systems to strengthen and improve their overall health. The improved overall health then reduces the need for sick leave days and health insurance claims.

We are very pleased with the results from what felt like a very easy sleep and fatigue management initiative. Night_Manager was right, using the sleep problem screening tool really did just cost us a few hundred dollars worth of paper. But the return on this investment far out weighed this cost. Our sick leave days have been reduced by 23% and our health care claim numbers have been reduced by 18%.