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Case Study from the Union Pacific Railroad

July 17, 2019 By Dana Harvey - Admin Leave a Comment

Union Pacific, the largest railroad in the US, turned to sleep intervention to solve employee risk factors.

In 2005 the Union Pacific railroad initiated an employee risk assessment research and intervention initiative aimed and addressing employee risk factors and decreasing medical spending. They focused on 11 risk factors.

Each of these risk factors individually implies greater medical costs over the employee’s lifetime and many also imply increased likelihood of injury. The risk factors included: Obesity, Asthma, Blood Pressure, Inactivity, Stress, Nutrition, Fatigue, Diabetes, Cholesterol, Smoking, and Depression.

Union Pacific implemented a fatigue risk management system which included diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. Even with challenging circumstances and a small percentage of participants, Union Pacific achieved huge results.

The medical savings from sleep disorder treatment alone summed to savings of $4.8 million after just 2 years of the program. Savings from avoidance of accident and injury added even more to this number. Union Pacific navigated the establishment of this sleep program all by themselves, but you don’t have to. Sleep Orbit is created to deliver such savings to companies like yours

The Challenge

Improve employee health and safety while reducing medical costs and improving productivity through medical sleep disorder interventions. The

  • Geographically dispersed population
  • Rural locations
  • Mobile population
  • Employee demographics
  • Thirteen unions
  • Benefits design issues

The Solution

Creating a program focused on addressing behavioral symptoms associated with fatigue using the following metrics: The Epworth Sleepiness scale, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Assessment, participants’ weight, participants’ job performance and the Beck Mood Inventory.

The Result

After an initial outlay of costs to address sleep disorders in their employee population, Union Pacific saw an immediate savings in healthcare costs for these employees. The initiative had less than a 10% participation rate, so there was ample room for comparison between participants with non-participants.

Participants in the study cost the Union Pacific insurance plan an average $200 less in medical costs per month, per employee than non-participants. This amounted to $4.8 million in savings after 2 years of program implementation. These savings are expected to continue for the lifetime of each employee.

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I’m Jason Moore, CEO of Sleep Orbit. As a former police officer and shift worker, I know what it’s like to live with disordered sleep.  Whether you’re an individual seeking a better quality of life, a physician looking to improve health outcomes or a self-insured company looking to improve employee satisfaction and save money, Sleep Orbit is for you.

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