During times of surge, the Brookings Health Foundation provides quick action support for their burdened workforce. Brookings recognized that employees start to get “burned out” with longer working hours and added stress, this affects their ability to “turn off” work and be truly present during the few hours spent at home. As a way to say thank you to workers going above and beyond and provide some relief for them and their families, any employee throughout the entire health system who works 100 hours or more per pay period receives vouchers for two family style meals and four hours of home cleaning service. As a way of helping the local economy, Brookings has consciously selected small and local businesses to provide these services.
The Love Our Healthcare Workers campaign was coordinated by the city of Brookings as a way to show hospital employees how much their time and dedication to saving lives in the midst of the pandemic means to the community. Thousands of people in the community dropped off hand-made paper hearts with words of encouragement. The hospital received more than 2,000 hearts in a few short weeks and posted them on the windows for all to see. This became the “cherry on top” of an already great week as the first doses of vaccine were received and a recovered COVID patient was clapped out of the facility.
Read more about Innovations from the Field here.
Do you have an Innovation from the Field to share? Compass would love to hear about it, contact perrym@ihconline.org and share your story.
