HALIFAX,
NS, May 7, 2024 /CNW/ - The annual
Benefits Together Conferences led by Medavie Blue Cross wrapped up
this week providing a way to connect and share tools to build a
committed and resilient workforce focused on healthy employees.
In Halifax, Toronto and Montreal, attendees including speakers,
clients, advisors and employees, gathered to share new ideas and
methods to continue to build healthy workforce communities.
Experts from across Canada
discussed factors impacting our workforce today including:
How artificial intelligence is
transforming healthcare and insurance
A panel discussion on how artificial intelligence presents
opportunities to relieve some of the pressure on our strained
healthcare system, as well as to improve efficiencies and member
experience for group benefit plans. The panelists also stressed the
importance of balancing the need for data security and privacy,
while exploring opportunities that technology can offer us.
The importance of sleep on
employees' health and performance
Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe and
Nathalie Lacombe, experts in their
field, led the second session of the day where they discussed how
lifestyle factors, symptoms of menopause, stress and chronic
conditions impact sleep quality and highlighted how sleep impacts
the wellbeing and productivity of today's workforce. Employers play
an important role in supporting employees' need for rest and
recovery through various life and career events.
Resilience: Preventing stress and
burnout in the workplace
Recognizing, preventing and treating burnout was also at the
heart of the discussions. With work and life stresses at all-time
highs, employers need new ways of supporting the physical and
mental health of employees. Resilience experts emphasized simple,
yet key steps to empower employees to take charge of their health
and build resilience.
We strive to give our partners the tools they need to be
successful. Participants left with a well-stocked toolbox to ensure
they put all the best strategies in place to have healthy,
fulfilled employees at work.
To learn more, visit medaviebc.ca.
If you are interested in speaking with any of our Medavie
panelists or special guests, please reach out.
Additional Quotes:
Bernard Lord, CEO,
Medavie
Once again this year, our conference series
was rich in information. In person only, Benefits Together fosters
important conversations. From our panel on AI and our informed
discussion on sleep to our closing presentation on employee
resilience, we focus on the changing environment in which we all
live and work to ensure a healthy and resilient workforce.
Angela Johnson, CEO and
Co-Founder, sanoLiving and speaker on the AI
panel
Despite receiving less than 8% of medical
research funding, with even less directed toward menopause, women's
health needs have been historically overlooked. Today, advancements
in AI and virtual health platforms offer women the chance to access
reliable information on their own terms and contribute their data,
helping bridge this critical knowledge gap. For this potential to
be fully realized, it's imperative that organizations commit to
complete transparency, ensuring women feel secure and empowered to
participate in research that could redefine healthcare for half the
population.
Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe,
Resiliency Scholar and Multi-award Winning Author
We can run a sleep deficit for a bit, but when it's prolonged,
we're going to see substantial and avoidable long-term health
conditions. Sleep is one of the most underrated things we can do to
improve our health and wellbeing. It's part of the human
condition.
Nathalie Lacombe, speaker
and partner in health and wellness
Now that
we're aware of the real impact of sleep on our physical, mental and
immune health, we're more interested than ever in optimizing it.
Considering sleep onset not as a switch, but rather as a dimmer
switch, helps us to understand how we need to gradually reduce all
forms of stimulation in the hours leading up to bedtime. Sleep
hygiene options exist 24 hours a day; for some, the evening routine
is more difficult to adapt, but it might be wiser to look at how we
spend our first hour awake.
About Medavie Blue Cross
Medavie Blue Cross is a premier all-in-one carrier that provides
health, dental, travel, life and disability benefits and
administers federal and provincial government-sponsored health
programs. Together with Medavie Health Services, we are part of
Medavie, a health solutions partner committed to improving the
wellbeing of Canadians.
We are in the Hall of Fame of Canada's Most Admired Corporate Cultures and
are certified as a Caring Company by Imagine Canada.
As a not-for-profit organization, we don't have shareholders.
Instead, we proudly invest in communities to help address some of
Canada's most pressing physical
and mental health care challenges.
SOURCE Medavie Blue Cross