Treating the Comatose Patient in a Wellness Driven Workplace

How much does a comatose patient respond to human interaction? For patients who cannot communicate for whatever reason, do we really know how much they see, hear, feel, perceive?

In your hospital or nursing home there are so many patients who are unable to let us know their needs, but they have needs,nonetheless.

If your hospital or nursing home is driven by wellness, this population should be the most fortunate recipients of your care. Even though they are not able to respond to interactions, they know when they are receiving warmth and comfort.

The brain knows for that moment whether or not the patient has memory of it or reacts. The brain knows.

Do you work on a wing where many of the patients are long forgotten by their families and friends? It's a sad predicament. Does your wellness driven workforce see this as a depressing part of their jobs or an opportunity to deliver wellness valued health care to strangers who may remain strangers due to their cognitive impairment? They don't have to be strangers.

For patients who cannot respond, can't complain, or say thank you, are they treated differently? Do they receive the same quality care by every member of your health care team?

For some, the definition of wellness is taking care of health in a preventive manner. Most of the public believes wellness is eating properly and squeezing an exercise program into the day. It's a chore that you need to fake a smile with while you are doing it.

To others wellness is understanding the value of the mind and body in sustaining life in all persons who are alive.

How can you convey this outlook to your hospital or nursing home team? For the institution that has a strong employee wellness program, not only do the workers and their families benefit, but so do the patients. For the patients who are unable to respond, they too receive the benefits of this wellness mind-set.

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Spread the Word so Health Care Can Heal

Meet Dr. Robert Butler.
He is a pioneer in geriatric health care. He also sees the growing need for change in health care for the aging population which also carries over into the care everyone receives. He believes there needs to be more public health and prevention in medicine. He also talks about drug toxicity, hospital errors, addictions from tobacco and alcohol, and poor nutrition. It sounds like there is so much in the world that needs tending to but the truth is we see the harsh realities in our hospitals and nursing homes.

Can our hospitals and nursing homes be leaders in revolutionizing health care? I believe with the ambition of Dr. Butler we can do this. It requires breaking some ingrained habits of course and the entire health care team must be on board from policy makers to those who provide direct patient care. Change isn't easy, but it can start with small steps. This has been talked about for a long time. Who wants to blaze a new trail and make it a reality? It starts with keeping our health care workers well so they can inspire their communities.

Watch this video of a recent speech. He is already inspired. Now we can do the same.

Watch Dr. Butler's Speech

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Give your health care team a solid wellness program
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Can A Thousand Eyes Help You?

Working in a hospital or nursing home where patient needs must be met 24 hours a day can get quite hectic. How many patients are on your floor or wing? How many staff people are available during the shifts? How often do we get interrupted by unusual events that also need our attention?

Prioritizing is very important and some tasks are left on the back burner. This is typical in health care when life saving action is necessary and patient care is always first.

When was the last time paperwork or non-urgent tasks were postponed? Last night? Earlier today? Just a few minutes ago?

Time goes by so quickly when it's busy and the new shift has arrived. They feel as if they were dumped by the previous shift's workers. "Sorry, it was a real zoo here the last few hours."

The good news is we all can play a role in preventing loose ends from making our day more difficult.

Take the Thousand Eye Approach.

We have the benefit of each other to help us get through the day. Health care workers who are in tune with keeping shifts running smoothly know when to step in a take care of a task that would really be inconvenient at a later time.

Restocking supplies, picking up a spill, delivering a message promptly or following up on a message can be time savers later.

We have each other to help us with their Thousand Eyes. We may not always have 500 people right at our side who take the initiative to alert us to possible problems that can be prevented, but we have enough co-workers around us to give us this support and each of us can return the favor.

It can get out of hand, however. The Thousand Eye approach can turn into a big tattle tale or complaining session. This idea is not designed to be that way. Friendly reminders or favors are much better received when the intention is understood that it is not a criticism.

"Hey, it's the thousand eyes." Let someone know you're looking out for them and ultimately the patients who are the final beneficiaries of our attention to detail. People in different levels of the chain of command should be able to feel free to communicate with each other in this manner when "the thousand eyes" are are here to help.

Be one of the thousand eyes.
Be devoted to your team.

Build Your Workforce with the Guide to Starting a Wellness Committee

Curiosity is Healthy for the Team

Taking interest in what is going on around you is a sign of a good employee according to coaches and business consultants.
READ ARTICLE HERE

The same benefits are seen in health care especially when it saves a patent's life. We've all seen the commercial about the pharmacist going to extra mile to find out more about a customer's health and contacting the physician to let her know about a possible medication interaction.

When a nurse forsees something that will make the job easier for the next therapist to work with a patient, the time saving gesture goes a long way in efficiency as well as worker morale.

Curiosity is just as important as job knowledge, ethics, and integrity according to Nancy Ackley-Ruth of Cultural Awareness International. There is something to be said about venturing out and learning a little bit about another co-worker's job that makes working together easier and more pleasant.

We know the doctor and nurse who are so much "by the book" that it back fires on them. I am not suggesting breaking rules, but someone who is "by the book" is very introverted and focused. This can have an effect on communication and working relationships. They may inadvertently alienate others.

This Houston-Chronicle story discusses how employees can advance their careers, but it also promotes worker wellness and camaraderie especially in the health care setting.

How do human resource and wellness directors encourage this practice? One way is to start out by leading the example and asking co-workers for their opinions especially how they feel a practice or procedure affects other departments.

Sign up for the Health Care Worker 911 E-Course for more information.

If Patients Aren't Happy--Health Care Workers Aren't Happy Either

In today's news health advocates are becoming very popular. There are different groups that help patients make sense of their EOB's find affordable medicines and feel as if they are listened to by their health care team.

Apparently there is a problem and patients don't know how to resolve their issues without the help of a third party. It sounds like a good approach since every facet of health care is so specialized and time is at a premium. Even health care workers feel overwhelmed especially when they know their patients and residents deserve to feel confident about their treatment plans and paying for care.

If patients need a health care coach, it seems as if health care workers do, too. They want to provide great service, but they can't be with one patient 24 hours a day. When a nurse, doctor, aide, or therapist leaves a patent's room, they are crossing their fingers hoping the next health care worker doesn't drop the ball.

Yet, it happens. And we all take the blame. How do we keep everyone on the same page?
We make health care worker wellness a priority.


CLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S INTERESTING AP STORY

Building Your Workforce Builds Your Community

Dr. DeBakey's Legacy: an Inspiration to All in Health Care

Dr. Michael DeBakey, the world-famous cardiovascular surgeon who pioneered such now-common procedures as bypass surgery and invented a host of devices to help heart patients, has died. He was 99.

He is an inspiration to everyone in the health care field. I am amazed at his accomplishments and encourage us all to follow in his foot steps. You don't have to be an inventor, but you can make an impact on people's lives in your everyday life.

Living to 99 is quite an accomplishment as well. I can only imagine what made up his philosophy on life.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE

Check out his bio on Wikipedia

One former student remembers Dr. DeBakey

Should Obese Workers Be Fired?

I just watched a segment on one of the weekend news shows about discussion over firing employees who are obese. The main issue had to do with the increased health care expenses for overweight employees.

For the self insured company it is very obvious which employee costs more. The constitutionality and issue of privacy rights are hot issues.

Work places also want to help people stay healthy because it is certainly a win-win for the company and the individuals.

Singling people out and talking to them about their weight and life style habits takes a great deal of sensitivity but probably isn't welcomed at all. Inviting people to join a weight loss program on a volunteer basis has possibilities.

Is this discrimination?

It was also mentioned that hiring women is a liability because they are likely to get pregnant and maternity care is costly as well as losing them when they resign to stay home and raise their children.

I was surprised the smoking issue did not come up.

Here is a great question:

Does the workplaces create stress that leads to worker weight gain?

That talk didn't come up. It seemed to place all the blame on the overweight individual. For health care workers it is a sticky situation. Health care workers who are not happy with their health may not bring up the topic of weight loss, quitting smoking, and other lifestyle factors with their patients. This avoidance leads both to suffer.

Obesity is the entire nation's problem since 60% of us are overweight. We can take it on as a nation in a way that is positive and inspiring, not with fear. A wellness program for health care workers can be successful without intimidating them with job loss. Beginning with health care workers can have a beneficial ripple effect to the community they serve.

Financial Penalties for Japanese Workers with Large Waist Measurements.......................

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From Exhaustion to Energy---What to do at work

Laura Stack, MBA, CSP who is the "Productivity Pro" (trademark)has written a great reference book for people who want to feel more energetic in The Exhaustion Cure.

She defines what energy is and isn't and I was quite surprised at my own misconceptions of energy.

Energy is not time
Energy is not health
Energy is not emotion
Energy is not motivation
Energy is not productivity

Energy is capacity
Energy gives you the ability to work
How you manage your sources of energy is critical.

She talks at length about physiology and practices which are woven together. The chapter on the energy bandits in the workplace is a great section on making the most of your work environment.

Meet her in this short interview



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Build Your Workforce
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Help Wanted: Good Workers in a Growing Industry

You know what they say, without your health, you have nothing. So it is no wonder the economy has health care as its anchor industry. Jobs and industries may come and go, but health care is always needed. It may change with the times, but is it always called health care.

It also needs well qualified personnel. Nurses and other professionals have been and will probably be in demand because of the health care needs of our communities. We need to take good care of them, as well.
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ARTICLE SOURCE
Health care has become the beating heart of America's economy.

By Kendra Marr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 13, 2008

In the past 15 years, the health-care economy has pumped out 4.5 million new jobs, including related fields such as drug development and health insurance. A dozen of the 30 fastest-growing occupations are related to health care. Even last month -- as the unemployment rate took its biggest jump in 22 years -- health care continued to add thousands of jobs.

No other industry matches this rapid growth spurt. Globalization has closed factories. New technologies have shrunk retailers and agriculture operations. Few jobs have been created in the finance and insurance industry recently, with the exception of health and real estate. Then the housing bubble burst.

And despite the flashy success of Web 2.0 companies such as Google and Facebook, the current tech economy -- telecom, software, electronics and throngs of techie start-ups -- still employs fewer Americans than at the height of the dot-com boom.

The health-care economy is only bound to grow larger. The aging baby boomer population is about to spur a new wave of health-care needs. Advances in technology are improving the survival rate of terminally ill and injured patients, who need extended therapy and care.

The health-care economy now employs about 16.5 million Americans. In the past three decades, the total national spending on health care has more than doubled to 16 percent of the gross domestic product. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that by 2082, rising health care costs will push that spending to nearly 50 percent.


On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee will host a day-long summit on health care, meant to help prepare legislators to wrestle with how they might approach reforming it.

Clearly, health care comes at a steep cost to the public and individuals. At the same time, it has brought about economic benefits, such as creating a second life for older manufacturing cities. Manufacturing, as a percentage of the GDP, has been cut in half in the past 30 years.

The auto industry has been steadily shrinking in greater Detroit, for example, shedding tens of thousands of car manufacturing jobs in the past decade. Ford plans to cut white-collar salary costs 15 percent by August, laying off an unspecified number of workers.

Next year, the Henry Ford Health System, named after the father of the modern assembly line himself, plans to open a $350 million community hospital that will employ 1,600 new hires.

Cleveland has emerged as a prime location for medical care and research. Longtime manufacturers, like machine-tool behemoth Warner & Swasey, that once dominated the region's economy, been replaced by the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals, two of the state's largest employers, and more than 500 companies providing medical goods and services.

"In this global economy, we knew we needed to stimulate a new economy in what we have skills in," said Baiju Shah, president and chief executive of BioEnterprise, which has helped develop the region's health-care industry. "Health care is one of those shining spots for Cleveland."

Read the rest of the article



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Medicare Tax Abuse Eroding the Public Trust of Hospitals & Nursing Homes

It looks like more bad news embarrassing health care workers. Who wants to work hard and demonstrate their utmost dedication to their patients as if they were their own family and then find out their hospital or nursing home has been cheating the system and jeopardizing their job security?

READ NEWS REPORT HERE

Even though we're talking about a few billion dollars, which is quite a bit, it seems as if only 6% of the health care facilities are guilty. It doesn't make you feel good because all the press is concentrating on the fraud rather than the fact the 94% of the hospitals and nursing homes are paying their taxes properly.

We can't let it get to us. We have to keep up our own good work taking care of the people who need us.

Does Your Facility's State Inspection Demonstrate Your Staff's Wellness?

It is a stressful time. The state inspectors come in to observe patient care and worker performance. Are things clean enough? Are patients' needs met quickly and efficiently with dignity? Is the health care team communicating well with each other? Are the medicines organized and secure? Are mistakes being made that compromise patient care?

No one likes to be criticized by an outsider who has no idea how easy or difficult your particular day has been. The comments are important as well as the team's reaction to the comments.

A highly commended report makes everyone feel relieved. A report that lists a number of deficienies is disappointing. Their nit-picking can be annoying. It can be used to guage the dedication of the health care team. Even with complete dedication to the job, poor training can't be hidden in a poor score.

Can the state report be correlated with staff appropriateness and their wellness?
If the report is rated excellent, it is a time to "strut your stuff."

Stress levels certainly go up when the state inspectors are around. It is a nerve racking time when you begin to distrust your fellow team members. If you don't have condfidence in the person working by your side, you eventually hurt you own work performance.

Let's keep the stress levels manageable. We can all survive this together.

Your work should be your play and your play should be your work.

Work is a home away from home. Feeling at home while at work is important. It's important for patients, too. If they don't feel comfortable, how can they relax and help their own healing?

When Wellness Programs Fall Short

How to Ruin an Employee Wellness Program:
Lesson 1 -- Don't do anything spectacular
Lesson 2 -- Make your employees feel less than human

Lesson 3...

Well what am I talking about?

Just what we don't need, a wellness program that does more lecturing than inspiring. There are many programs that have good intentions but they don't do much more than a sidewalk health fair that gives out free pens and takes a quick blood sugar test or blood pressure. It doesn't motivate the employees to grow as a team trying to promote their best human potential.

Do you want to be slapped on the wrist for being overweight? Do you want to feel like a failure when you aren't walking around the block on your lunch hour? Do you feel worse than when you go to your general practitioner?

Below is an interesting blog post I found about this topic. An enthusiastic worker wanted to make improvements in her health, but ended up feeling rejected. You can also check out the 5 tips for saving your employees.

Here is her story:

I signed up for the wellness program because I am incredibly interested in wellness and wished to participate in my ongoing journey to health and self acceptance through a wellness program. I appreciate that (company name) offers it and I believed it to be an opportunity to see (from a participant point of view) what (company name)is all about.

I understood that the wellness program was dependent on setting and ‘checking in’ on self created goals. I was excited to couple a health educator’s knowledge with the ongoing journey that I have been on.
CLICK HERE TO READ HER ENTIRE BLOG

Doctors and Nurses Not Immune to Stress

A recent news story from Life Supplemented stated doctors and nurses "try" to follow good health practices. CLICK HERE FOR THE ARTICLE This is a great start. Everyone should feel motivated to do well with their wellness practices.

I still came across other statistics that showed there are issues with nurses who have obesity and smoking concerns. Substance abuse is a problem with medical doctors. I have to admit every article promotes the writer's agenda which is fine as long as it is backed up by supporting information. Stress is stress and health care workers often feel they have to be super performers while they are absorbing the stress of their patients.

In another article from a nursing newsletter, patients are "struggling" with their recovery from illness especially when stressed about their own jobs. We hope health care workers are doing better than the general population with stress mangement, but they are under extraordinary stress, as well, because they are dealing with everybody else's illnesses.

And, I've got one more article to share with you on this topic. Jack Stem, a peer assistance and wellness chairman works with nurses coping with addictions. He is the founder of Addiction Prevention Education Consulting Services (APECS)in Ohio. He can discuss very eloquently how it is a quiet problem slowly simmering into a possible addiction crisis in health care. CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE

What does this all mean? Stress is on everyone's mind. No one is immune. Wellness is recognized as an important topic and we all need ongoing support to keep us on track. Health Care Worker 911 is the kind of program that goes beyond health monitoring but wellness coaching for well life. A comitment to wellness goes a long way in keeping the health care worker on the job as well as preventing long term healh problems.

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How to save your health care workers

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When Health Care Workers Get Sick

Absenteeism in the health care work place has a problematic rippling effect on the other workers and patients. In hospitals and nursing homes, keeping each shift “comfortably” covered is no easy task. Because hospitals and nursing homes must function under a unique and high-pressured clinical setting, a specialized employee wellness program is needed to keep both health care workers and their patients healthy.

What happens when health care workers get sick? They don’t show up for work leaving a strain on the remaining workers. Patient care is often prioritized so the most critical services are maintained while less necessary care can be postponed. Emergency procedures, medication and meals cannot wait. What other tasks can be put off? Showers, completing forms, answering questions and checking in on patients are temporarily put on the back burner. It is a difficult scenario for dedicated workers who hate to decline a patient’s request when circumstances are beyond their control.

What happens when sick health care workers come back to work? Are they really better? Will they relapse and call in sick again? Are there factors in the work place contributing to their poor health? Do they have adequate health care as an employee of a health care institution? Is there a way to assist them without infringing on their privacy rights? Can health care administrators prevent the burnout that leads to high turnover rates in hospitals and nursing homes?

Health care workers also have a significant number of health problems. There is a high rate of smoking and obesity in nurses. The British Medical Journal has reported medical doctors die from suicide, poisonings and cirrhosis of the liver. In 2003, The Journal of the American Medical Association touched on the subject of sick doctors in the article, “Care of the Dying Doctor.” An unhealthy staff is an overlooked epidemic that mirrors the rest of society.

Getting health care workers well and keeping them well takes the same effort that their patients have to take. They need to follow the same advice: healthy diet, physical fitness, and stress management. It is not easy in general, but the health care worker sees the tragic results of other people’s stress: trauma, disease, suffering and death. Their continual exposure to other people’s ill health forces them to carry the extra burden of caring for others as well as themselves.

Health care workers must not set their well being aside. A specialized health care worker wellness program can be implemented to reinforce healthy habits so they can inspire their patients to do the same. It requires an honest look at working conditions, and introducing positive incentives. Employee wellness programs have statistically shown positive benefits to a corporation’s bottom line as well as employee morale.

Health care workers may have better knowledge of what it takes to promote health and it should be encouraged at work as well as home. This “bridging” allows the health care worker to remain consistent in their efforts all the time. Hospitals and nursing homes have the opportunity to invest in their health care workers with a unique wellness program that will help their workers and benefit the public.