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| EASY UP: Tara Kidd, RN, (right) and Janice Abercrombie, CNA, use an assistive device with patient Gary McIntyre. (photos by Kyle Kielinski) |
It's often said you can't take care of others if you don't take care of yourself. Employee Health and Wellness Services at Greenville Hospital System (GHS) University Medical Center, Greenville, SC, make that task a little easier.
The program offers a wide range of preventive and disease management services, ranging from a comprehensive flu vaccination campaign and support for chronic conditions to smoking cessation and weight-loss advice. The GHS Employee Health staff is made up of 12 RNs and four support staff.
"We take care of regulatory issues that impact employees, such as respiratory protection and personal protection devices," said Pam Billings, BSN, RN. "We do immunizations and screenings for new employees, fitness-for-duty assessments, return-to-work issues, workers comp/injuries and more."
Wellness Promotion
The wellness component of the GHS program covers employees and their families. This free program covers the entire health spectrum, with the exception of end-of-life and acute care. Top areas of interest are behavior modification, smoking cessation, weight loss, stress reduction and general encouragement toward adopting healthy behaviors.
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| UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE: The employee health program is completing the rollout of a minimal-lift program, called UPLIFT (Use Portable Lift in Facilitating Transfers), to prevent injuries. Demonstrating use of a lifting device are, from left, Norma Johnson, RN, Sandy Messer, BSN, RN, Bonnie Campbell, RN, (posing as a patient) Sherry Gravely, MS, BSN, RN, and Shannon Wheeler, MSN, RN. |
Employees with chronic health conditions such as diabetes, coronary artery disease, COPD, asthma and CHF benefit from the disease management perspective of the program.
"One cornerstone of the program is offering incentives for employees to take control of their health," Billings said. "Employees or their family members enrolled with the disease management program will get 50 percent off prescriptions associated with their condition. There's also a Web site with behavior modification programs, a health risk assessment, healthy recipes and other wellness tools."
The wellness program is multidisciplinary - a nurse may offer counseling on diabetic foot care, while a dietitian can help employees keep their carbohydrate intake in check. A pharmacist can assist a worker who has a child with asthma on inhaler use.
In 2007, the program earned a Wellness Councils of America Gold Award.
Protection & Prevention
On everyone's mind lately is the H1N1 influenza virus and how to prevent its spread. Last fall, before H1N1 made headlines, GHS conducted a 3-day flu vaccination event, spearheaded by Gina Wallis, RN, an employee health nurse and member of the GHS Emergency Management Committee. The event was a success, with 2,859 employees vaccinated and plenty of positive feedback received.
In addition to protecting employees and patients from the regular seasonal flu, Wallis saw it as a way to test the hospital's plan for mass vaccinations in response to a flu epidemic or other public health disaster requiring prophylaxis or vaccinations. This same model was trialed successfully for implementing annual respirator fit-testing, which is now available to employees on a quarterly basis. No advance appointments are required. Employees walk into the sessions and leave in less than 10 minutes with a new N95 respirator.
Wallis applied her knowledge of GHS's Hospital Emergency Incident Command System (HEICS) to plan the flu exercise. She designated herself as the Incident Commander and selected specific staff members as "chiefs" of the following stations: greeter, screening, vaccination and runners. All stations were manned by two to six employees. Billings provided time and staffing, feedback and support.
"We set up the program to vaccinate the most people in the shortest amount of time," Wallis said. "Employees filled out a form, were screened, got their shot, were escorted to exit and turned in paperwork. The average time was less than 7 minutes per employee."
Monitoring Conditions
Concerning H1N1, the employee health nurses have a list of questions to ask if someone comes in with symptoms suggesting the virus, and they send employees showing those symptoms home with a checklist to monitor their symptoms.
The GHS Web site has a page for managers to report any employees who have self-reported a fever. Infection control looks at those numbers to determine if contact investigation or other precautions are needed. The site also has an H1N1 page, which is written and monitored by Infection Control Preventionist Sue Boeker, BSN, RN, where case counts, symptoms and other information can be posted.
"If we had to redefine our respiratory protection plan, say if the CDC says all healthcare workers need N95 respirators, we can use our flu vaccination model to do a mass fitting," Billings said.
Planning has already begun for a 2009 drill/flu vaccination campaign.
Safety First
GHS employees not only must be vigilant for viral symptoms, they also must be alert for on-the-job hazards like poor lifting techniques that could cause serious injury. The employee health program is completing the rollout of a minimal-lift program, called UPLIFT (Use Portable Lift in Facilitating Transfers), throughout all GHS facilities.
"We will complete the process at Greer Memorial Hospital in July and begin the last phase at Greenville Memorial later this year," said Emily Becker, MN, RN, COHN-S, facilitator of the UPLIFT and other ergonomic programs.
Implementing the UPLIFT plan involved many hospital departments: administration, nurse leaders, employee health, workers compensation, engineering and more. A safe patient handling program consultant, Diligent, partnered with GHS to implement the program.
"For the first few years of the program, they provide training and consultation," Becker said. "They also train minimal-lift coaches, which some hospitals would call 'super users,' who are mentors and resource persons for the unit staff."
Nursing staff undergo an initial 2-hour training session, followed by a skills check-off by the staff coaches. The staff must also complete annual competencies.
GHS's minimal-lift program uses a variety of tools to keep caregivers and patients injury-free: slippery sheets to reduce friction, standing aids to help patients get up, mobile floor patient lifts and specialized bariatric lifts.
"We've seen a big reduction in patient handling injuries across the system," Becker said. "In 3 years, we've seen a 66 percent decrease, which is quite significant in that three of the hospitals were implemented 1 year ago or less."
Abigail Scott is former senior associate editor at ADVANCE.
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