Stories

The heart screening road trip that screened 1,200 employees from Lidl Ireland

Pen Laura De Puis Glasses 5 min read

You name it and chances are we have it. From Behavioural Psychologists to Cardiologists, sleep experts and parenting gurus to nutritionists, we have designed hundreds of health and wellness programmes for our corporate clients. We’ve even built and run gyms in the workplace, all with the aim of creating a healthier and happier workforce. Last year, we undertook our most challenging campaign yet, the first of its kind in Ireland.

We worked closely with Lidl Ireland in order to create a specially tailored Health & Wellness programme that could be rolled out nationwide to all of Lidl’s employees.

We take much pride in the fact that this project was the direct result of a deeper relationship forged between the two companies after one of our routine Heartbeat cardiac screening clinics detected a serious cardiac defect in one of Lidl’s employees in 2014.  That particular success story led to the employee having life-saving open-heart surgery after which the employee is not only back to full health - but also the gym!

Well-known RTÉ broadcaster and presenter of The Sunday Game - Michael Lyster - was brought on-board as a campaign ambassador. Michael raised awareness of the life-saving benefits of cardiac screening, and shared his own personal experiences of his heart issues to re-inforce the campaign’s preventative health message.

The Challenge;

  • Deliver the highest standard cardiac screening experience in the 61 locations nominated by Lidl, covering 143 of its stores and over 1,200 of its employees
  • Ensure that the tests conducted complied with the highest standards and that results would be issued to each employee within 10 working days
  • Ensure that Lidl would receive a general anonymised overview of the results from all its stores to help it better understand the health and wellness needs of its employees
  • And …. deliver the service inside 3 months!

Meeting The Challenge;

1. CAPABILITY

We worked with our health screening partner Advanced Medical Services (‘AMS’) to help devise and deliver the cardiac screening service.

AMS has experience in delivering over 80,000 cardiac health screens across Ireland. They also have extensive practical experience in delivering  our well known ‘Heartbeat’ cardiac screening clinics in Dublin, Cork and Galway. The screening programme included a secure online booking platform that meant that each Lidl team member could select their preferred appointment time, attend at their convenience with little or no queuing and also receive their finalised results online. All finalised results were firstly reviewed by the Consultant Cadiologist.

The on-site service was led by a medical doctor and nurse / cardiac technician who received assistance from the AMS clinic manager who is responsible for running the actual clinic.

2. TESTS & EMPLOYEE RESULTS DELIVERY

The combined information that comes from the results of the tests presents the Consultant Cardiologist with a good picture of heart health and helps to identify potential cardiac abnormalities.

3. DELIVERY

This project also presented us and our partners with practical challenges. We needed to get to 46 stores nationwide, three remote distribution centres, a Warehouse and one Head office to screen a total of over 1’200 people within three months. What better way to do this than create a bespoke fully equipped screening unit that allowed us to travel to each location and carry out the screening onsite. The result was a journey that brought us to all corners of the country.

This would not have been possible without the great working relationship between our team, AMS solutions and Lidl. Everyone worked tirelessly to ensure that this life saving service was offered to all employees across the Republic of Ireland. The Lidl senior management team did this because they understand that their employees are at the heart of their organisation. Post screening anonymous reports gave them an excellent insight into the general health of their employees, and also provided them with a benchmark for future health & wellness initiatives that would prove helpful in addressing any areas of concern. We had some brilliant feedback from the employees at Lidl Ireland but mostly, we are proud of the preventative nature of this screening and how important preventative healthcare is. Now, we’re working on our next challenge

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Laura De Puis

Laura de Puis works in our Health and Wellness team at laya healthcare and has worked with laya since 2007. She holds a degree in Business Studies and has been awarded a Professional Diploma in Insurance (CIP) by the Insurance Institute of Ireland. Laura’s role is to manage Health & Wellness client accounts by providing an in–depth consultancy service, to design and deliver bespoke Health & Wellness programmes across all our corporate clients, which has positioned Laya as the market leader in Health & Wellness in Ireland.