EHPs' wish lists: More time and wellness
EHPs' wish lists: More time and wellness
Resources don't allow full range of services
During this month's Roundtable discussion, several participants say they wish they had the time and resources to offer certain services they presently are unable to provide.
Having more time to investigate incidents is on the wish list of Bonie Koch, RN, COHN-S, employee health nurse at Crittenton Hospital in Rochester, MI.
"I don't have time to investigate injuries or accidents, which is the kind of thing I think I should be doing," she says.
Time in general can be a problem for a one-practitioner employee health department serving 1,800 employees.
"Some days get completely overwhelming, such as if I have a TB exposure involving four or five departments, and I have to retest all those people plus everything else I need to accomplish that day," she notes.
Two other practitioners say they would like to establish comprehensive employee wellness programs.
An on-site fitness center offers reasonable memberships to workers at the Milton S. Hershey Campus of the Penn State Geisinger Health System in Hershey, PA, and employee health nurse Ellen Knott, RNC, BS, says her department works with the center in planning wellness campaigns.
"But we'd like to do more with wellness, such as routine cholesterol screenings or at least spot screenings for individuals attempting to lower their cholesterol. We'd like to be more involved in prophylactic-type treatments if we could, and quite honestly, I wouldn't mind providing massage therapy. However, they all have a price tag attached, and we can't prove they'd be beneficial," she says.
Catherine Pearsall, ANPC, COHN-S, employee health nurse at Central Suffolk Hospital in Riverhead, NY, has "a big vision" of a corporate wellness program "so we can meet the health care needs of employees right here in-house," she says. "We could offer them all their episodic and health maintenance care as well as patient education. That would be my ideal goal over the long term."
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