As the health club industry in Europe - small and relatively unregulated - works more with the healthcare industry - huge and highly regulated - it's becoming abundantly clear that the issue of standards needs to be addressed appropriately.
If the health insurers en masse are going to subsidise health club memberships, they will want to know, among other things, who is running the club, if members will receive appropriate and timely health-risk assessments, if the club has up-to-date equipment, if the staff can help provide a safe, effective workout, if plant and equipment are safe and well-maintained, and if emergency procedures are in place. For credibility's sake, these standards and others will need to be assessed and compliance confirmed by a third-party organisation, one that the medical community will both respect and acknowledge.
Standards for personnel were discussed at meetings in Limerick this summer with the American Council on Exercise, (ACE), and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
Another key development was the launch last autumn of The European Register of Exercise Professionals (EREP) which will act as a third party supporting the development of national registers and coordinating the key data required at a European level. Entry to the registry will be managed and reviewed by European Health and Fitness Association's Standards Council and each individual country's verification body will have to adhere to the framework and competence authenticity in order for individuals to join. EHFA is divided in to four main working groups and commissions: Network of Fitness Employers, Network of Exercise Professionals and Registers, Labour Market Research Group, and Training Group.
Standards were certainly an important topic of discussion at the 5th Annual IHRSA European Congress in Rome. In fact, IHRSA signed a strategic partnership agreement with EHFA at the meeting.
Exactly what should health club safety standards be, and how best can they be set up and implemented?
If anyone has definite thoughts on the matter, it's Paul Eigenmann. As founder and Executive Director of Qualitop, he has taken on the task of setting, assessing and certifying conformity with standards for the fitness industry in Switzerland, where health insurers have subsidised health club memberships for a decade. In the following interview, Eigenmann discusses just how the Swiss model has worked and his view of the move toward standards worldwide.
CBE: Please describe what you and Qualitop do.
Eigenmann: My mission is to independently and neutrally assess conformity with standards that have been set by an independent advisory council, which is made up of specialists. We have members of the Federal Department of Exercise and Sport who know sport and sport science; we have health insurers who know mortality and morbidity. We have representatives from our industry who are specialists in running clubs.
We want to define what the minimum safety standards are that need to be in place to open a heath club. You decide, for example, which is the closest/fastest ambulance-accessible entrance to your club? Is it the front, the back or the side? That's important, because in the case of cardiac arrest and no standard, the extra two minutes the ambulance may take due to confusion could be decisive. We know from Canadian research that people may be so nervous that they can't describe the entrance. So, it has to be put in written form so people can read it over the phone.
We've created an 800-item yes/no checklist for our auditors so they can objectively evaluate a club. The club gets a report that includes which standards it has and has not met and what it needs to do to conform to the standards. We do about 800 onsite audits per year for the 370 clubs in our network. Certification is for one year. We also provide a history of compliance going back five years. Our major customers are major health insurers, and large companies, like the Swiss Railway System and UBS, one of the world's largest banks.
This is what I do and nothing else. According to the third-party principle, I'm not to offer services or make money directly or indirectly in the industry while I perform the assessments.
CBE: Are you doing this in other countries besides Switzerland?
Eigenmann: I am lisensing software for the standards programme. We're working with TUV in Germany and Austria, as well as Vertitas in Norway. We're also working in Belgium.
CBE: Can you also give a brief history of health club membership subsidies in Switzerland?
Eigenmann: They go back to the late 80s. Legislation opened the market so that people could chose health insurers and change from one to the other, which created competition. Insurers started to look for ways to acquire good risks. People who work out in health clubs are good risks because they take care of themselves, so insurers started paying subsidies for memberships. When the large insurers were very successful, others did the same, so subsidies lost their value as a marketing tool. Up until 1990, I ran a small health insurance company, and I ran a health club from 1990 to 1996, so I knew that standards would differentiate one club from another.
I founded Qualitop to become a third party that would set standards in the industry. Because I knew a lot of people in the insurance and health club industries, I set up an advisory board to create a real certification system, according to certification principles.
CBE: Please give an overview of the standards you're talking about.
Eigenmann: To start, the new member risk assessment should have clear, well-defined questions, and should be signed and dated. There should be standards for equipment instruction, and procedures in case of emergency, and a CPR-trained person in the club at all times. The variety and selection of equipment should allow for a comprehensive and preventive workout. The level of member supervision (there should be a certain number of staff in the workout area depending on the time of day) and the quality of the personnel in the club should be defined, depending on the size of the club, and we have eight club size categories. There should be a standard for the percentage of the staff members that have a minimum education qualification. Also, the rights the member has when buying a membership should be subject to minimal standards.
