Wellness coordinator outlines city employee health gains, warns grant funding will end

Megan Saubom, the city’s worksite wellness coordinator, told the Joplin City Council on April 6 that participation in the city’s wellness activities rose in 2024 and 2025 and that the program is now pursuing its highest recognition level.

Saubom said the program offered 45 events in 2024 with 283 participants and 46 events in 2025 with 309 participants, citing recurring activities such as a walking group, yoga and a gym orientation led by Freeman Sports Medicine. "I'm Megan Saubom, the wellness coordinator for the city of Joplin," she said as she opened the presentation.

The presentation traced the program’s roots to 2010 initiatives and the creation of an employee insurance committee later rebranded as the Wellness Works Committee. Saubom credited an LPHA infrastructure grant with making the coordinator position possible but warned that the grant funding "will conclude at the end of this fiscal year," and said she is seeking new partnerships and presenters to sustain lunch-and-learn training opportunities after the EAP stopped providing five hours of free annual training.

Saubom highlighted the annual employee health fair as the program’s largest event. She said the most recent fair included 25 vendors, roughly 150 employee attendees and 47 flu shots administered by Joplin Health Department nurses. Biometric screening participation at that fair totaled about 55 employees, and the program uses those screenings to track bone density, BMI, blood pressure and blood draw results.

On health-care utilization, Saubom reported a roughly 10% decrease in emergency room visits while noting that cost per ER visit rose. Urgent care visits increased while cost per urgent-care visit fell. "Right now, [telemedicine] is mostly being used for mental and behavioral health," she said, and identified telemedicine promotion as a priority to reduce unnecessary ER use and improve access to timely care.

Saubom said inpatient hospitalizations declined about 38% over the measured period, though amounts paid per admission rose; she said there were 25 admitted members with an average stay of about 3.5 days. She described top diagnostic categories as musculoskeletal, digestive, circulatory and respiratory conditions and said mammogram rates lagged, likely because a local health system had temporary closures that limited access.

Saubom closed by saying the committee has 19 members drawn from 14 departments and reiterated program goals: increase telemedicine awareness, encourage at-least-annual primary care visits and focus interventions on the program’s largest diagnostic categories. The mayor thanked Saubom, and no formal council action or vote was recorded in the informal session.

The city will continue outreach efforts and Saubom said she will pursue partnerships and other funding or program models to sustain the coordinator role after current grant funds expire.