Booz Allen Hamilton and Business Leaders Explore Workplace Solutions for Preventing Diabetes in the UAE

pan>)--World Diabetes Day is marked each year on November 14 by the World
Health Organization, the International Diabetes Federation and other
global actors as a means for raising awareness about the growing
diabetes crisis around the world. Diabetes affects 346 million people
internationally and this number will double by 2030 without proper
intervention and care. On World Diabetes Day, Booz Allen Hamilton
announced the conclusions from a recent dialogue on the diseases impact
in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where 32.8 million
people have been diagnosed with diabetes as of 2011, and this number is
expected to increase by 83% to 59.7 million by 2030.
“Diabetes in the UAE: Workplace Strategies Tabletop”
To foster collaborative solutions to the diabetes crisis, Booz Allen
Hamilton convened executives from leading companies operating in the UAE
on November 5, 2012, at the St. Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi for the
Diabetes in the UAE: Workplace Strategies Tabletop event. Participants
in this half-day event included representatives from the food and
beverage, hospitality, pharmaceutical, and health care industries. The
group engaged in a dynamic, participant-driven simulation exercise
designed to provide stakeholders an opportunity to explore cooperative
strategies about how to effectively address the growing problem of
diabetes amongst employees and their families.
Grant McLaughlin, a Booz Allen Hamilton Vice President who facilitated
the event, commented: Unless action is taken immediately, even larger
numbers of people in the UAE will continue to be impacted by diabetes.
It is vital that the private sector, which is greatly impacted by the
costs of providing insurance and of lost employee productivity, play a
critical role within the country to take collective action across
society to address this growing public health issue.
During the event, participants conducted a simulation in which they each
acted as managers of a fictional multinational corporation operating in
UAE and had to make choices to address employee health circumstances in
near-, mid- and long-term time frames. Participants had the opportunity
to evaluate and prioritize choices from a menu of programs that could
help their employees. Recommended programs were designed specifically
for this event by Booz Allen Hamilton subject matter experts and focused
on nutrition, fitness, mobile health, disease management, screening,
cash incentives, and awareness.
Discussion among participants revealed numerous broader themes around
approaches to corporate wellness programs and the type of leadership
necessary for motivating behavior change that employers can implement to
stem the diabetes crisis in the UAE. Over the course of the exercise,
participants found the highest value in prioritizing three types of
programs: disease management measures, fitness and nutrition programs
offered by employers, and cash incentives.
Most participants consistently chose to support a comprehensive disease
management program that would provide automatic prescription refills,
waiver of medical co-pays and weekly meetings with an on-site wellness
coach. They prioritized nutrition and fitness programs, wanting to
provide literature on healthy eating habits and company-sponsored
memberships to an on-location gym, given that the company had sufficient
resources to carry out these initiatives.
Participants also expressed a strong interest in implementing cash
incentive programs to promote healthy practices, but discussed that such
incentives would not be culturally appropriate for every workplace, and
that additional strategizing needs to occur regarding what constitutes
sensitive yet effective methods of instigating behavioral change.
Finally, participants suggested that in order to create a sense of
public urgency about the diabetes crisis, multiple sectors across the
healthcare provider, patient and payer (often private business) spectrum
would need to collaborate to identify solutions. Such engagement across
all sectors of society, coupled with culturally-sensitive methods, will
create immediate, sustainable impact.
Highlighting the events success, Don Pressley, Regional Managing
Director for Booz Allen Hamilton Middle East, said, Increasingly,
leaders are realizing that, in an era of growing complexity, old ways of
approaching problems are no longer successful. Today, business leaders
from all over the Emirates demonstrated unique insight and strong
motivation to fight our number one public health priority the Diabetes
crisis. Given our unique position in Abu Dhabi, we are eager as a firm
to support future collaboration between sectors on mutually-important
goals such as anti-diabetes initiatives.
More details on the events themes and insights can be found in the Booz
Allen Hamilton report, Fostering
Dialogue to Address the Diabetes Crisis in the UAE: Business Leaders
Collaborate on Workplace Strategies.
About Booz Allen Hamilton
Booz Allen Hamilton is a leading provider of management and technology
consulting services to the U.S. government in defense, intelligence, and
civil markets, and to major corporations, institutions, and
not-for-profit organizations. Booz Allen is headquartered in McLean,
Virginia, employs approximately 24,000 people, and had revenue of $5.86
billion for the 12 months ended March 31, 2012.

Information Source: Business Wire