The VITENSO Health Center in Darmstadt was officially opened at the beginning of September (we reported on this in TT-DIGI 05/2025). At the new location, the Merck company offers its employees a unique combination of premium fitness, physiotherapy and other health services on more than 1,300 square meters. VITENSO is a strong partner with many years of expertise in the healthcare sector for the implementation and realization of the concept.
Successful start
Just a few weeks after the opening, it is clear that the concept can also work well in reality. The VITENSO team has exceeded its initial targets in terms of membership numbers and physiotherapy capacity utilization. In particular, the demand for therapeutic measures is better than planned, report the two VITENSO managing directors Michael Eckerl and Sven Naumann in an interview.
It should be borne in mind that there are logical limits due to the restriction of benefits for employees desired by Merck. Almost 11,000 employees work at the Darmstadt site who could be cared for as members or patients in VITENSO. There are (as yet) no access options for employees of service providers, for example in the area of security. Access options. Physiotherapy, on the other hand, is open to the public and can also be used by external patients.
The client, Merck, would like to bundle all activities relating to employee health at the center in the long term. An important factor in the implementation was therefore the fact that the operating company VITENSO is a partner that takes care of all key areas of responsibility as part of a full service contract: from consulting and planning to concept development, purchasing and installation of the equipment, right through to controlling and operation.
Lots of communication within the Group
In addition to the concept, Naumann and Eckerl also praise Merck’s internal measures to draw attention to the new opportunities at the Health Center. In addition to the opening ceremony, for example, there are numerous guided tours of the Center and other activities such as short courses for interested employees.
“In general, it’s important to strike the right tone when it comes to BGM/BGF communication. Employees don’t want to feel like they are being patronized. Instead, the focus must be on fun and voluntariness as well as education and knowledge,” explains Michael Eckerl.
Close integration of fitness & therapy
What makes the location unique is the combined offer of fitness and physiotherapy in the same building. While many larger companies have fitness rooms or fragmented occupational health management measures, almost the entire portfolio of health services is offered here. As the fitness and physiotherapy departments also belong to the same company, there is no sense of competition. On the contrary, it is hoped that there will be noticeable synergy effects.
The fact that VITENSO acts as the operator instead of Merck results in advantages for the desired processes. Once a new patient’s data is in the system, physiotherapists and trainers can communicate and smoothly organize the desired transfer from therapy to the training area (or vice versa) or other measures.
Benefits for patients and members
The employees, in turn, are given the opportunity to make an appointment for physiotherapy relatively quickly if required. The close cooperation with Merck BKK creates further trust.
Members can train flexibly in the immediate vicinity of work for a fair price or take advantage of other offers. An existing cooperation between VITENSO and Fitness First gives members a further advantage: they can train at all RED and/or BLACK locations of the gym chain for a small surcharge.
The big goal: more health, fewer days lost
The health of its employees is worth a lot of money to Merck. In addition to the one-off investment costs for the really high-quality Health Center, it also costs a certain amount to operate. However, the bottom line is that the money should be worth it, as the company hopes that this will have two main effects. Firstly, the health program should strengthen employee loyalty. Above all, however, the aim is to reduce the number of days of absence by optimizing health, so that employees can work until retirement if possible. The reduction in the sickness rate could also enable the project to be refinanced in the medium term.
Evaluation of the training data
In order to achieve and verify this goal, the members’ training data is recorded anonymously and analyzed in different groups (age, area of work). This approach is based on valid data. Therefore, when selecting the equipment, for example in the area of body composition/posture and circuit training, care was taken to ensure that comparable data could be collected.
Model with exemplary character
With regard to the role of the location as a model for similar projects, Sven Naumann is quite optimistic about the future: “The project is initially designed to run for five years and we want to do a good job and scale the concept during this period. If it works well, the idea can certainly be implemented elsewhere.”
Author: Philipp Hambloch
Source: https://tt-digi.de/vorsprung-durch-konzept-das-neue-gesundheitszentrum-von-merck-13149
