It's About Caring For The Caregivers

Hospitals present both a unique challenge and a distinct opportunity for wellness at work. The health and wellness of its employees and staff is critical if the hospital is to fulfill its mission to provide care for patients. All too often the personal health of the caregivers takes a backseat to the everyday priorities and responsibilities of caring for others. That’s the challenge.

The opportunity: When these caregivers are able to respond to a realistic challenge, to begin to care for themselves, they demonstrate that wellness is indeed achievable. They help to create a new culture of wellness within the hospital and the community. And when this occurs, multiple benefits accrue to all stakeholders.

LoneStart is a real program for real people living real lives.

“As an Administrative Assistant at Otto Kaiser Memorial Hospital, I work alongside my father who is a Pharmacy Tech / Supervisor. I see patients daily with illnesses and disease, and I can’t help but be concerned for his future health and well-being—as well as for my own. Together we were part of the LoneStart Program here at Otto Kaiser. During the 63-day Incentive Challenge, he lost 17 pounds, 16.5 inches and 2.4 BMI points—and counting. I think too often we don’t realize that our kids follow our example (good and bad) with respect to nutritional choices and physical activity. We’re both still incorporating LoneStart principles into our daily routines and I’m proud to say that together, my dad and I are paving the way for our family’s future generations, by the positive steps we are taking today.”

Christina Benavides

(Read more about Christina and her dad under Downloadable Articles, “Otto Kaiser Success.”)

With the LoneStart Team Esteem 63-day Challenge, employees have a built-in support system through their fellow workers. They take the program home and involve their families, spouses and children. As more individuals get involved, it spreads to the community. And with those individuals, it all comes back to how we must each take the responsibility for ourselves to address those issues we can do something about, issues that will ultimately affect our long-term health and wellness.

By implementing a well-conceived and open-ended employee weight loss and wellness initiative, hospitals:
	Make an investment in their employees’ health and wellness that has a demonstrable R.O.I.
	Proactively address an urgent public health crisis and reinforce their role as the leading wellness resource in their community.
	Fulfill their mission to promote and maintain community wellness while advancing their brand with current and potential consumers of their services.

Taking It A Step Further

Hospitals are in a unique position to realize multiple benefits from the implementation of a proactive wellness initiative.
	Reduce costs by implementing a wellness initiative for hospital employees.
	Go the next step to fulfill their mandate as a wellness resource by implementing a Community Outreach Wellness Initiative.
	Build brand equity within the service area.
	Generate additional revenue.

Having reinforced its credentials as the leading wellness resource in their service area, the hospital can promote itself as a fee-for-service provider of corporate wellness initiatives. There is no longer any question that an effective employee wellness program is essential if an organization intends to rein-in health care costs, reduce absenteeism and increase productivity. Hospitals can position themselves as the logical partner in this effort. While corporations have outsourced this role primarily to the fitness industry, hospitals can make a compelling case that they are uniquely suited to understand and address the expensive to treat and preventable chronic conditions which contribute to higher employee health care costs. We believe such a fee-for-service program is the logical extension of the hospital’s own employee weight loss and wellness initiative and it’s Community Outreach Initiative.