Preventing Or Reducing Common Health Problems: An EAP can Provide Front-End Value Within Integrated Health Plans by Introducing Clients to Services for Physical and Mental Issues (Focus: The Integration of Physical and Mental Health‪)‬

Employee assistance programs historically have shared an on again, off again "affair" with health care. Indeed, EAPs' genesis as a workplace intervention program for alcohol and drug abuse suggested a linkage to a domain traditionally governed by the health care industry. In their classic studies of employee assistance programs, Erfurt, Foote, and Hinrich (1992) demonstrated the pivotal role EAP technology can play in motivating change in individual health behaviors. Success with challenges such as smoking cessation, diabetes, and hypertension illustrated how long-term costs could be mitigated through the integration of EAPs and health care. It was in this vein that Jack Eurfurt coined the term "mega-brush manager" to describe an EAP model that would, in effect, sweep, pick up, and ultimately direct a greater breadth of employee health issues to appropriate health care services and programs.