Dionne Graham, Executive Director of East St. Tammany Rainbow Child Care Center, believes that as caregiver, you can’t pour from an empty cup. She wanted to send the message that if by taking better care of yourself, you’ll be better a caregiver to the families the Center serves, as well as families at home. But, as most of us can relate, funding and time repeatedly pushed worksite wellness programming to the bottom of her priority list. When Dionne learned about Well-Ahead Louisiana’s WellSpot Designation Program everything changed. With the support of Well-Ahead, Dionne was able to implement healthy changes in her workplace, despite her small staff of 15 women.

Rainbow Childcare Center began its journey to WellSpot designation by creating a Wellness Committee including staff, parents and various stakeholders such as Slidell Memorial Hospital. The Center’s partnership with Memorial Hospital resulted in a Community Outreach Nurse visiting the Center to provide blood pressure and BMI screenings monthly! This nurse also hosts regular, on-site workshops on topics selected by staff. As part of the designation process, the Center also became a breastfeeding friendly workplace, promotes a tobacco-free campus, and offers healthy food options at all staff meetings. Since being designated as a WellSpot, staff members are encouraging each other to make healthy food choices. They are dancing in the classrooms with their students. Dionne has even seen a competitive streak during their weight loss challenge!

The importance of living a healthy lifestyle and modeling that behavior for children has a tremendous impact in preparing their minds and bodies for learning and creating happy employees while reducing stress, increasing productivity, boosting morale and lowering absenteeism. Being a designated Level One WellSpot provided a way for Rainbow Child Care Center to connect to their employees in a meaningful way. It also gave them the tools they needed to create real change in employee lives and the lives of all they touch.

Did You Know?

•  Worksite wellness programs have been shown to increase employees’ overall satisfaction, increase productivity and decrease absenteeism.
• 36.2% of Louisiana residents are considered obese. Obesity can lead to chronic diseases that affect work productivity as well as attendance.
• Secondhand smoke exposure contributes to approximately 41,000 deaths among nonsmoking adults and 400 deaths in infants each year.

Moving Louisiana’s Health Forward

WellSpots are spaces and places in Louisiana that have implemented healthy changes in their environment to help their employees and community live well. When you make the healthy choice the easy choice, the benefits are endless. Employees are happier. They miss less work. They are more productive. And, their healthcare costs go down! It’s easy to become a WellSpot. Start the WellSpot designation process today by taking the online assessment here.

Fifteen North Oaks Health System facilities have recently been designated as Level 1 WellSpots, with 30 additional North Oaks facilities designated as Level 2 WellSpots. North Oaks provides a tobacco-free and breastfeeding friendly environment; healthy dining and vending options; and patient education on the following topics: 1) tobacco cessation 2) diabetes self-management 3) obesity 4) high blood pressure and the 4) 5-2-1-0 Let’s Go! message.  These healthy practices enrich the lives of North Oaks employees and invest in the health of the Tangipahoa and Livingston parish communities.

The health system’s most exciting benchmark achievement incorporates healthy vending into North Oaks facilities where vending is available.  Offering healthier vending options makes the healthy choice the easy choice.  It empowers North Oaks employees and patrons to make small healthy choices every day, which can help prevent high blood pressure and obesity.  To do this, North Oaks added several PepsiCo Hello Goodness Machines on its main hospital campus and added several healthy options to other machines. 

The health system rolled out its healthy vending with an employee nutrition series that included education on food labeling, snacking and weight loss. Going forward, the system will also host weight loss challenges and wellness screenings annually. North Oaks employees have readily embraced the healthy vending options.    

As major employers and health leaders, health systems have a great opportunity to promote healthy choices in the spaces and places where we live and work.  Hospitals help establish norms for healthy living.  North Oaks is one of Louisiana's largest health systems with two hospitals, an outpatient surgery center, two outpatient diagnostic & treatment centers, two outpatient rehabilitation clinics, a hospice agency and physician group primary and specialty care clinic network in Tangipahoa and Livingston parishes. North Oaks has repeatedly been recognized as employee-friendly and a "Best Place to Work" (New Orleans CityBusiness 2008 – 2013, 2016). 

To learn more about healthy vending, click here.  

DID YOU KNOW?

• 36.2% of Louisiana is obese.  This ranks our state the most obese in the nation.
• Obesity is the second leading cause of preventable death in the U.S.  
• In recent years, our nation’s obesity prevalence has almost tripled – up from 11.6% in 1990 to 29.8% today.
• According to the Snack Food Association, about 74% of consumers are trying to eat healthier. Thus, sales of healthier snacks are outpacing traditional snack foods by 4 to 11.

MOVING LOUISIANA’S HEALTH FORWARD

WellSpots are spaces and places in Louisiana that have implemented healthy changes in their environment to help their employees and community live well.  When you make the healthy choice the easy choice, the benefits are endless. Employees are happier. They miss less work. They are more productive. And, their healthcare costs go down! It’s easy to become a WellSpot. Start the WellSpot designation process today by taking the online assessment here.