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HEALTHY EMPLOYEES
Visit
Waccamaw Community Hospital’s lobby,
and you’ll see employees walking up and down
the Stairwell to Wellness, passing by a white
wellness board. Visit the campus of Georgetown
Memorial Hospital, and you’ll notice people
circling the campus again and again on the
newly marked walking trail. Eat in the cafeteria
at either hospital, and you can choose from a
color-coded menu system used to identify healthy
choices. Or if the cafeteria is closed, try the right
side of the vending machines located at every
Georgetown Hospital System (GHS) facility. The
healthy food options are located on the right to
help people remember: right side, right choice.
These programs highlight efforts by the GHS
employee wellness department to improve employee
health and well-being. Recently designated as a
Wellness Center of Excellence, GHS was first in South
Carolina to earn gold medal status recognition for all
three program pillars in the South Carolina Hospital
Association’s (SCHA) Working Well Initiative.
The pillars include tobacco-free people and places,
delicious and affordable healthy food options, and
access to and opportunity for physical activity during
the workday. GHS recently underwent a thorough
JenWright (far right),
manager of the
WorkingWell Project,
presents goldmedal
status for achieving
all three pillars in
the WorkingWell
Initiative to (from
left) manager of
EAP/Wellness Carol
A. Benefield, MEd.;
wellness specialist
Renee Shore; vice
president of human
resources Jan Harper;
and clinical nutrition
manager Jennifer
Miller, RD, LD, CNSC.
GHS programs help employees become shining examples of health
inspection of hospitalwide employee wellness
programs and earned gold medal status in each area.
“We met the criteria for the pillars of wellness by
creating opportunities for physical activity, healthy
eating and tobacco cessation,” says Carol Benefield,
MEd, manager of EAP/Wellness Services. “Our overall
goal is to create a culture of wellness at Georgetown
Hospital System.”
It gets even better
In addition to the Stairwell to Wellness and walking
trails, GHS employees can participate in on-site
physical activity classes. Yoga and Zumba classes are
held at both Georgetown Memorial and Waccamaw
Community hospitals on a weekly basis. Employees
reserve the first few months of the year to track their
physical and learning activities in the annual Get
Physical Challenge. Team scores are tabulated based
on physical activity, learning activities, and weight and
inches lost during the challenge. Awards are given to
the top performers.
“Our goal is to make it easy for employees to
participate in physical activity during the workday,”
says GHS wellness specialist Renee Shore. “An increase
in these activities has a positive effect on the health
and productivity of our employees.”
Dietitians and wellness staff offer employees
nutrition counseling and host other nutrition-related
educational programs, such as supermarket tours,
Create Your Weight program and at-work Weight
Watchers meetings.
“Small changes to your diet can make a big
difference in your overall health,” says GHS clinical
nutrition manager Jennifer Miller, RD, LD, CNSC.
“We hope to educate our employees about these
differences in a simple way that is easy to follow.”
Every GHS facility is tobacco-free, and the hospital
system offers tobacco cessation classes and cessation
support for all employees. Tobacco use, poor nutrition
and physical inactivity are all major risk factors that
contribute to early and preventable disease and play a
huge role in the cost of providing health services. Among
employees, these risk factors result in higher absenteeism,
lost productivity and increased costs for employers.
As health providers, our employees understand
the role they play in being examples of health and
wellness in our community. GHS employees are at
the center of health, and these programs give them
an easy opportunity to begin and continue positive
health behaviors.
Pillars of
wellness
www.georgetownhospitalsystem.org
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w.georgetownhospitalsystem.org
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