Hospital addresses health issues among staff through education

Once under way, the program caused a welcomed issue—education materials were flying out the door.

"The biggest problem was keeping up with materials," says Mathes.

Supply had trouble keeping up with demand, prompting frequent calls from employee health center and physician practices for additional materials.

"Honestly, sometimes getting into physician offices was a problem initially as we got them to realize this was a program that could benefit their patients, but once we got into the offices, [Smith] was able to describe what we were doing, and they embraced it," says Mathes.

Spartanburg took an MRP concept and turned it inward. "With [the MRP], when you think about your nurse practice model, our theory is caring for our own and reaching out," says Smith. "Caring for our own is paramount, that we not forget that we have a large population of women are right here in our institution."

Success stories
SRMC offers blood pressure screenings every February. In one year, it took more than 500 blood pressures and found that 50% of the employees who were screened had elevated systolic blood pressure. The hospital was able to provide guidance for those employees, whether through advice, treatment, additional tests, or further evaluation.

"It sounds very simple, but I'll venture a guess that if you talk to healthcare providers . . . we take blood pressures every day but very seldom take our own or each others'," says Smith. "We felt there was possibly a need there, and unfortunately we were right."

And once those basic healthcare needs were met, the facility knew its employees would pass on the information they learned. "Part of our education with our employees was knowing they would take it back to the bedside," says Mathes. "This information could be passed on to their patients when they're ready to go home. Just educating our staff would help our patients."

The next step is to demonstrate continual improvement and growth. This means keeping things interesting.

"The other thing is to keep up with the employees," says Smith. "We have to keep offering them opportunities to learn more about their risks and how to live a healthy life. We have to be creative and keep our employees interested in clever ways."