Wellness Factors Editor-in-Chief Sabitri Ghosh interviewed Wellness Factors Advisory Board Director Vic LeBouthillier. Here are excerpts from their questions:

How we define optimal health:

Optimal health is feeling good, both emotionally and physically, and having the ability to ward off sickness and premature disease.

How people can experience optimal health:

By developing health skills and lifestyles that foster good health. For some, this is achieved by using our health tools; for others, it requires the support of our health coaches, whose skills provide motivation and accountability to achieve improved health.

Why health should be a priority:

Health is the greatest asset you have, but we often don't realize this until we become sick. Feeling good emotionally and physically is what gives people the zest and quality of life to dream, set goals and work diligently to achieve them.

How Wellness Factors builds health tools:

Using a holistic approach to health, our teams are made up of people who specialize in mental/emotional and physical health, communications and Web technology. Our ideas come from being connected to people like yourself, understanding the everyday challenges you experience and knowing how best we can support you through them to improve your health.

After being scrutinized and validated by our medical team, initial concepts go from the incubator into development stages, which include focus-group testing to ensure they are relevant, practical and easy to use. We build our health tools much like toys; if they are good, children will play with them. Our challenge is to always make health tools fun and rewarding to use.

What the qualifications of our people are:

First, we make sure our work teams are made up of people experiencing first-hand the benefits of good health. Many of us have always enjoyed good health; others have worked hard to achieve and sustain it. Second, we are all passionate, empathetic people using various skill sets to inspire and instruct people to use our health tools to experience improved physical and emotional health.

Operating the world's largest interactive health portal requires a vast range of talents that includes: medical doctors; naturopathic doctors; psychologists; nurses; lifestyle coaches; nutritionists; administrators; researchers; animators; artists; writers; researchers; and software programmers.

How people use our tools:

They receive a passcode that gives them access to a personalized website featuring 26 health tools and their own personal health records 24/7 from work or home. These tools come in three categories:

Human Interactive Tools provide access to health-care professional via phone, email and evening tele-workshop, question-and-answer sessions and group discussions.

Web Interactive Tools provide access to tools built by health experts that can be used 24/7 from home or work, including micro videos, health-risk assessments, stress-management tools and a calorie nutrition counter.

Topical Search Engines provide up-to-date topical information in article or encyclopedia format.

How corporations use our tools: That depends on how they plan to build health into their corporate culture. Our commitment to customer-service excellence allows each client to order a tailor-made wellness program that meets their wellness goals.

Some businesses want to help employees get on the fast track to improved health. For others, the steps are small and incremental.

Our senior wellness directors work closely with you to create specifications that reflect the exact wellness program to suit your goals and budget. Once the program is built, we install a wellness button on your corporate website so employees and family members can enter the site with a passcode. The entire program is completely outsourced to our team, allowing you to stay focused on your core competencies.

Why we deploy our health tools through the Web, telephone and email technologies:

For many logical reasons.

First, to stretch wellness-dollar spending so ROI can be achieved and second, to provide easy, 24/7 accessibility to your employees from home or work. Because family health and employee health are inseparable, we encourage employees to get their families involved, which is why they can also access the tools from home.

Third, we believe the flash-in-the-pan education program does not change behavior; ongoing support programs do. Research clearly indicates that sustained change comes from ongoing training and support programs that provide opportunities for incremental change and growth. Our evening tele-workshops, multimedia stress workshops, teleconference group discussions, personalized expert advice, health-risk assessments, calorie nutrition counter, and many other health tools are available to employees and family members 24/7, day after day, month after month, from home or work.

The Web has revolutionized the way we shop, date, do our banking, book a plane ticket, and access information. At Web Health, we think that deploying your wellness program through the Web is a logical step to gain high usership and reduce health-care costs.

Who is Wellness Factors Inc.:

Our roots began in the late 1970s as in-house wellness consultants, publishers of health books and magazines, and producers of accredited home-study health courses, which eventually evolved into software development (see www.alive.com).

Our team is made up of people who come from various backgrounds in health-related fields, including publishing, health education, health sciences, coaching, software development and communications. We have over 3,000 software installations on two continents and sell publications on three. We have offices in the Caribbean, U.S. and Canada.

What motivates Wellness Factors Inc.:

A passion to help people become everything they wish they could be and to support them toward making incremental changes so their goals become a reality. Directly and indirectly, our leaders are involved in humanitarian projects that include homes for orphaned children in the developing world (www.hopeforthenations.com). Thirty per cent of Wellness Factors Inc. profits and stock goes to our non-profit health foundation to promote health in developing countries.

What's the logic in creating a business culture that highly values health:

#1 Today's hyper-competitive marketplace, together with a shrinking labor force, make it imperative to be an employer of choice. Top employees will always choose to work in a business that puts a high value on people over one that doesn't. By providing wellness and life-skills education programs to employees and their families, you automatically position yourself as an employer who cares.

#2 To be creative and productive, employees require an environment that fosters holistic health. This means educational and training programs to improve interpersonal dynamics, emotional intelligence, stress management, optimal nutrition and physical activity.

#3 Studies verify that wellness dollars spent on preventative health programs will provide a -5 return on investment for every dollar spent. In other words, spending wellness dollars on employees should not be viewed as an extra expense but as a savings measure in a marketplace where corporations are experiencing double-digit increases in health-related costs.

Click here to view Wellness Factors Inc. Advisory Board.