Author Archives: Loreto

WOW-Working on Wellness

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6/29/2013
It has been a very busy and exciting few weeks working on wellness at the Neponset Health Center. I created a survey to assess the employees needs and interest in worksite wellness and posted it on Survey Monkey as well as putting paper copies and a collection box in all the lunch rooms. Four pedometers were raffled as an incentive for completing the survey. Wellness Team members also promoted the survey at their departmental staff meetings. I did a great deal of campaigning urging staff to complete the survey on an individual level as well as participating in a number of staff meetings.
Comments from the staff are really encouraging, for example one woman wrote to me and said “I’ve worked here since 2004 and nobody has ever done anything for us before”. The dedicated email for the Wellness program has allowed employees to post their comments and suggestions for making the worksite healthier.
All the effort paid off and we got a total of 135 surveys returned which represents 62% of the total staff. According to my site supervisor this is the greatest response to any survey administered during her 24 year tenure in the organization. Seventy three surveys were answered on Survey Monkey and 52 on paper. It took some time and effort to aggregate the results which I presented to the Wellness Team at our second team meeting this past Thursday.
Some of highlights from the survey results are:
• 73% of respondents reported engaging in physical activity 3 or fewer times per week, with 24% reported no physical activity.
• 78% of respondents reported eating less than 5 fruits and vegetables daily, the majority, 45% reported eating 2 or fewer fruits and vegetables daily.
• Overwhelming, 73% of respondents indicated that they would participate in worksite wellness activities and 27% answered “maybe” (if they were interested in what was offered). No one responded that they would not participate.
• Weight and stress management were the most cited activities respondents would like to be available as part of a worksite wellness initiative.
• Yoga, stretching, zumba and walking groups were the physical activities in which respondents were most interested.
• The most cited reason for wanting to participate in worksite wellness activities was to feel healthier, meet and get to know more staff and team building.
Based on the survey results the wellness team decided to organize a virtual walk. I am going to plan this event and with the wellness team roll it out over the next few weeks.
During the past few weeks I have compiled a literature review on worksite wellness programs that focused on environmental and policy changes and specifically on studies based in smaller worksites similar to Neponset Health Center. I completed my summer practicum on worksite wellness reviewing a study which tested the effectiveness of a worksite intervention which focused on environmental and policy changes on weight-gain prevention.
Finally I am working on an environmental audit, there are several tools available but I have chosen to use the Checklist of Health Promotion Environments at Worksites (CHEW) tool as it is mentioned frequently in the literature and is one of the tools recommended by CDC. http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/hwi/programdesign/environmental_audits.htm

WOW Working on Wellness

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The overall goal for my practicum is to develop and plan for the implementation of a wellness program in a medium-size community health center.
I work for Harbor Health Service, INC. (HHSI), a non-profit, public health agency and I am doing my practicum at one of its community health centers. Harbor Health owns and operates three community health centers: Geiger Gibson Community Health Center in Dorchester, MA., Harbor Community Health Center-Hyannis, MA., and Neponset Health Center, Dorchester, MA. Harbor Health also administers the Elder Service Plan in Mattapan, MA, a program providing care to frail elders in their place of residence, the Ellen Jones Community Dental Center, Harwich, Ma and the Dorchester South WIC program where I am the director.
I am doing my practicum at the Neponset Community Health Center. My site supervisor Paulette Shaw Querner is the vice-president of the HHSI Community Health Centers Division and I am also getting a tremendous amount of support from Kevin Casey the Executive Director of Neponset Health Center.
Paulette and I decided to use the Worksite Wellness Program Toolkit which was developed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Public Health in 2012 (http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/docs/dph/mass-in-motion/worksite-wellness-toolkit.pdf) as a guide for my practicum.
An important first step for a worksite wellness program is to have a clear mandate from the leadership as this communicates the importance of worksite wellness to all employees and helps to create a culture of health. It also helps to obtain resources, support and participation.
When I first approached Paulette about the possibility of working on this initiative for my practicum, she was immediately excited, supportive and motivated to see the project succeed. Likewise Kevin Casey assured me his support of the project.
The next step was to compose a wellness team. Research from the Wellness Council of America (WELCOA) suggests that team members should be formally appointed. Therefore I emailed every middle-manager at Neponset Health Center to nominate one person from their department who would be interested in this great opportunity. Currently there are 16 members on the Wellness Team. Concurrently with composing the wellness team, I did a number of presentations to market the wellness program concept. I presented at the HHSI all mangers retreat as well as the middle-managers meeting and at the general staff meeting at Neponset Health Center. I also met individually with the Medical Director.
This past Thursday May 30th marked the kick-off meeting of the worksite wellness team. I did a brief presentation on the current food and physical activity environment and provided some ideas for improvement. Working on Wellness (WOW)   I am trying to attach the presentation but I’m not sure if it will work. The team decided our program would be called “WOW” acronym for “Working on Wellness”. We developed a needs and interest survey for employees and the plan is to administer the survey this week through survey monkey and paper as some employees do not routinely check their email. The team also decided to request a designated email for the Wellness program- wow@hhsi.us . The health center is sponsoring a raffle for four accelerometer pedometers for employees who complete the survey.
That’s all for now!