ITHACA — Performance Systems Development, an Ithaca–based provider of building performance software and services, has joined the White House-led Green Button Initiative.

The White House last year called on industry to provide electricity consumers with easier access to their energy usage data via a green button on utility websites. Access to the information can help consumers conserve energy and save money through new tools and services developed by third parties, according to PSD.

The company plans to offer Green Button energy data connections as part of its Building Performance Compass software.

“Easy and recurring access to energy information is critical to improve the success and efficiency of the energy efficiency industry,” Greg Thomas, CEO of PSD, said in a news release. “We applaud the White House for rapidly moving forward this voluntary standard. It will help building and homeowners make better decisions, help contractors and engineers improve their energy services, and help utilities improve the cost effectiveness of their programs.”

Thomas is also chairman of Efficiency First, a national building retrofit trade association.

Contact Tampone at ktampone@cnybj.com

More employers are launching wellness programs, and the majority of organizations currently offering wellness initiatives are looking to invest in and expand them. 

That’s according to the 2011 Willis Health and Productivity Survey by Willis North America’s Human Capital Practice in Atlanta, a unit of global insurance broker Willis Group Holdings, plc (NYSE: WSH).

The national survey found 60 percent of respondents indicated they have some type of wellness program, an increase of 13 percent from 2010. Willis also found 58 percent of employers with wellness programs already in place say they plan to expand their wellness plans with added programs or resources. 

“Wellness programs continue to evolve and it is encouraging to see more organizations initiate programs despite economic pressures and continuing challenges in accurately measuring outcomes and results,” Jennifer C. Price, senior health-outcomes consultant in the Willis Human Capital Practice, said in a news release.

Additional key findings from the survey include:

– Of those organizations with a wellness program, 40 percent reported they have an “intermediate” program in place. The survey defined that as having established a wellness budget and providing some incentives for participation, in addition to offering the voluntary wellness activities of a basic plan.

– The most common types of wellness programs offered by survey respondents include: physical-activity programs (53 percent), tobacco-cessation programs (49 percent), and weight-management programs (45 percent).

– When asked about the leading barrier to measuring success of their wellness initiative, 43 percent of employers said it was the difficulty of determining the influence of wellness compared with other factors affecting health-care costs. Insufficient data and not enough staffing/time are other common barriers to measuring success.

The survey included a subset of questions that also asked employers about work/life balance programs. Findings reveal that 51 percent of respondents reported promoting work/life balance initiatives within their worksite-wellness program.

The survey found that helping employees achieve work/life balance is a significant concern of 18 percent of respondents, and somewhat of a concern of 54 percent of respondents. Flexible start/end times are the most common offering of work/life balance program options, reported by 81 percent of respondents. 

Willis said it conducted the survey for the global business market, gathering information from 1,598 employers throughout several different industries, locations, and organizational sizes. It said 57 percent of the respondents had fewer than 1,000 employees and 42 percent had fewer than 500 workers. Willis conducted this survey through a web-based program.       

People enrolled in “consumer-driven” health plans tend to have higher incomes, higher educational levels, and report better health behavior than do those enrolled in traditional health plans. But they are not younger. Those are just a few of the findings of a new report by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) that examines trends over the 2005–2011 period.

Consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) generally consist of high-deductible health plans (HDHP) paired with a health-reimbursement arrangement (HRA) or a health savings account (HSA). As of 2011, about 21 million individuals, representing about 12 percent of the market, were enrolled in a CDHP or an HSA-eligible health plan.

“Consumer-driven health plans are a growing presence in the health insurance market, so it’s important to understand how they differ from traditional health plans,” Paul Fronstin, author of the report and director of EBRI’s Health Research and Education Program, said in a news release. “It is often assumed that CDHP enrollees are more likely to be young than those with traditional coverage, because they use less health care, on average. However, in most years, the survey found that CDHP enrollees were less likely than those with traditional coverage to be between the ages of 21 and 34.”

Other major findings in the EBRI report, which examines the population enrolled in a CDHP and how it differs from the population with traditional health coverage, include:

Education: CDHP enrollees were about twice as likely as individuals with traditional coverage to have a college or post-graduate education. In 2011, 24 percent of CDHP enrollees had a graduate degree and 48 percent had a college degree, compared with 12 percent and 24 percent, respectively, of traditional plan enrollees.

Health: In six out of seven years of the survey, EBRI found that CDHP enrollees were more likely than traditional-plan enrollees to report excellent or very good health. CDHP enrollees were less likely to report that they smoke or did not exercise regularly, though it could not be determined from the survey whether plan design had an impact on those self-reported factors.

The full report is published in the April 2012 EBRI Notes, “Characteristics of the Population With Consumer-Driven and High-Deductible Health Plans, 2005–2011,” online at www.ebri.org.

EBRI says it’s a private, nonprofit research institute based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on health, savings, retirement, and economic-security issues. EBRI says it does not lobby or take policy positions. 

SYRACUSE — A new branch of an optometric business has opened at 85 Walton St. in the Armory Square district. Lou Enzerillo, owner of New York Optometric, opened his second location in Syracuse on April 16. Enzerillo’s first store is at 116 E. Washginton St. He is calling the stores New York Optometric Downtown and New York Optometric Armory Square, respectively.  

Enzerillo noted the reason he has launched another store, that is not much more than a five-minute walk from the first, has to do with the different areas of the city and different clients.

“I want to bring new things to the Armory Square location that currently can’t be found in Central New York. New specialty frame lines such as Lindberg, Lafont, and Salt.optics are eyeglass frames that differ from the traditional eyeglass standards,” he says.  

The opportunity to lease the Walton Street location presented itself through a previous relationship with the building owner, Robert Ducette. Enzerillo signed the lease with Center Armory Associates LLC in December 2011. Terms of the lease were not disclosed. 

“We did extensive renovating to the new site,” says Enzerillo, “all new lighting, new flooring, new plumbing (added a sink in the exam room), new paint (including a feature wall done by Jean Conte), and reworked the furniture/fixtures.” The cost of the renovations was not disclosed.  

Thus far, Enzerillo has hired one additional, full-time person, optician Lisa Giocondo, for the new location. Later, staffing with depend upon the ebb and flow of the business. For the present time, he’s keeping the scheduling of his current employees flexible.

New York Optometric currently has three employees on East Washington Street, not including an optometrist who comes in two days a week, and one employee on Walton Street. Enzerillo will continue to spend the majority of his time on East Washington Street, but will keep his time flexible.