ROCHELLE — Rochelle Community Hospital’s wellness committee works to improve the health of its employees. The committee has been revived this year post COVID-19 pandemic to implement regular initiatives to offer staff education, events, and ideas to improve their lifestyles.
The committee includes a group of diverse, yet particular members including Denise Bauer (CHRO); Lorena Hueramo (HRG); Brenndon Garcia (HRA); Christine Carter (education manager); Marcy Cline (respiratory therapy coordinator); Lisa Charboneau (cardiac rehab RN); Janelle Stein (dietician); Ross Pullom (food service manager); Jennifer Finkboner (food service coordinator); Kelly Musselman (employee health nurse), Kirby Heward (marketing and PR), Tracy McGee (professional billing support specialist), and Luis Cano (dietician).
The RCH wellness committee’s self-improvement slogan for this year is “More Core in ‘24: Mind, Soul & Body.”
“It's to improve the core, mind, soul and body of our employees, and the community,” Hueramo said. “That's why we formed the group, to have that goal and get wellness in our minds and do different things for our employees. Hopefully they build some good habits.”
Heward said the committee started off trying to get as much wellness information to employees as possible and its next phase is to implement more programs for employees in the coming year.
Bauer said the wellness committee is derived from RCH’s health and productivity team that has been in place over the past three years that is led by a consultant. That team is also made up of an array of representatives of specialties at the hospital.
“We want action-based plans and the wellness team is part of that,” Bauer said. “It's a conduit to our employees' health and wellness. With our health and productivity team, we're promoting what we call a health home. It's really that connection and partnership with our employees and their physician or provider so they can work and partner together to make a healthier employee looking at wellness and everything else. We want our employees to partner with their providers and take ownership of their own healthcare. Being part of that health home, our employees have a reduced rate to their health cost and insurance contributions. I think that's positive too.”
The wellness committee has implemented lunch and learn programs at RCH where employees and some community members have already learned about nutrition, meditation, journaling and movement throughout the workday.
Other programs put on by the wellness committee have included a farmer’s market carried out by RCH’s dietary department. Other programs are also offered in the RCH cafeteria.
“We also started to offer a dollar off in the cafeteria for people that don't use Styrofoam containers and stay and eat and gather in the cafe,” Finkboner said. “We're trying to get back to that after COVID-19 and get that networking back. We have punch cards for salads and smoothies to encourage people to eat healthier. We have a new TV with the food offerings with the calories each item has so people can make healthier choices.”
Members of the wellness committee said that along with wellness, the programs also work as marketing, recruiting and retention tools for current and prospective RCH employees. And for employees’ healthcare, RCH’s workers receive care at the hospital at a reduced cost, Bauer said.
Hueramo said the wellness committee will continue to come up with a variety of programs to offer employees. In October, it will offer employee meetings on 401K information. Wellness is more than just eating healthy and exercise, it’s all encompassing, Heward said.
Members of the committee believe improving wellness among RCH employees can only help with the hospital being more successful in its ultimate goal, providing care for the community.
“As hospital employees, we also represent health,” Stein said. “We want our public and our community to be healthy and I think they look to us for those behaviors and what's in our shopping carts. Modeling that and showing it's possible is encouraging to the public that's our friends and neighbors.”
