South Bay Companies invest in wellness

The following is extracted from an article in The Daily Breeze, Saturday, February 19, 2011, page 1. To read the full article  click here

From setting up wellness centers to bringing in nutritionists to holding office workouts and weight challenges, local companies are taking an aggressive role in helping their employees slim down, quit smoking and eat healthier. companies see this as a way to invest in their employees," said Kimberly Kierman, director of health and wellness strategies for United HealthCare, who helps companies establish such programs. "They are finding that not only does (better health of workers) lower health care costs, but leads to less absenteeism, more productivity and improved morale."

At Ducommun, a Carson aerospace company, workers last year were invited to organize into teams and compete to see which could lose the greatest percentage of body weight. Roughly 650 of the company's 2,000 workers participated in the 90-day challenge.

"It was very well-received," said Rose Rogers, vice president of human resources. In all, the workers lost a combined 4,745 pounds - equal to the weight of a baby elephant, a picture of which the company put in the office to celebrate the feat.

This month, Ducommun is kicking off a walking challenge, doling out pedometers and tally sheets to employees, who will count steps for more prizes. The company is also offering on-site health screenings and stress management programs.

In 2009, 58 percent all companies offered at least one type of program. Last year, 74 percent of companies offered these programs. Most of the programs are strictly voluntary, however; just 10 percent of the firms that offer wellness programs tie incentives to participation.

The ultimate goal is to reduce the rate of chronic disease, which accounted for three-quarters of the $2.6 trillion spent on health care in the United States in 2009. Chronic disease includes ongoing and often controllable conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

In Los Angeles County, 34 percent of all residents suffer from at least one chronic condition, according to the 2009 California Health Interview Survey.

It is no surprise that as the rate of chronic conditions has risen, so have health care costs. In 2000, the average premium for a worker with a family plan was $6,438 a year, with the employee contributing $1,619, Kaiser found. In 2010, the average family premium was $13,770, with the worker contributing $3,997.

Despite steep increases in the cost of insurance, it is still the most affordable option for most families. Roughly half of all residents under 65 in the South Bay region are covered by employer-based insurance, the 2009 health interview survey showed.

Next month, the Healthways-Blue Zone Vitality City project will begin encouraging all businesses in the South Bay beach cities to enroll in a program that will offer a number of health improvement tools to lower costs and improve health of workers.

This includes an "environmental assessment people can do at the work site, to improve the health environment," said Joel Spoonheim, director of the local project.

The outreach to businesses is part of the larger Vitality City project, a three-year health makeover planned for Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach. Businesses will be able to participate for free, with funding coming from the company and the Beach Cities Health District.

"We recognize that we can do all we can do in the workplace, but once (workers) leave, they go home, they go to restaurants and all sorts of places where healthy choices are not readily available," Spoonheim said.

"In order to make real changes, you really have to impact social networks, friendships and other areas of daily life. ... The work site is a good place to start, and we're hoping to have an impact there to improve well-being."

Caring For Your Parents

After relying on mon and dad for everything from extra cash to career advice, have the tables turned and do they need you as badly as you used to need them? If so, you're not alone. According to a recent survey by the AARP, approximately 44% of Americans are caring for elderly parents and that number is only expected to increase as the baby boomers enter their golden years. With this in mind, many adult children are trying to figure out how to take are of aging parents who can no longer take care of themselves.

The best thing you can do is to prepare in advance so you understand your parent's wishes and are well educated about community resources that can help you provide your parents with the best possible care. However, many adult children just aren't prepared, have no idea where to start looking for help and maybe aren't even sure what kind of help they need. If you fall into that latter category, don't worry.

Take a deep breath, exhale and read on.

1. Identify your parent's needs. Make a checklist of essential needs such as bathing, cooking, cleaning, errands, groceries, and companionship. Writing it all down and, if possible, getting input from your parent will help you determine what is critical and what isn't.

2. Accept and enlist help early on. Identify community resources (many are free or operate on a sliding scale) meet with siblings and/or other family members to determine who is going to do what; ask for help from neighbors, friends and extended family members. Don't martyr yourself and make the mistake of trying to do it all. Ask for and ACCEPT help.

3. Important documents. Make sure your parent has an updated and valid Will, a durable power of attorney and advanced directives which include a living will and a durable power of attorney for health care.

Home care counselors at Always Best Care are available to talk with you about your home care needs; including how to reduce caregiver stress while providing better, affordable home care in the South Bay area.

Seven Tips to Helping Someone who is Unemployed

Many of us will have family or friends who are going through a difficult time during a period of unemployment. In a review of the research on couples with one unemployed spouse, there was no direct correlation between unemployment and marital dissatisfaction (Barling, 1990). This seems counterintuitive, since we might think that unemployment would lead to greater conflicts in a marriage. However, unemployment can also lead to a recognition and appreciation for the support a marriage can bring and some marriages can actually get stronger.

How Can You Help?

1. Talk about it and validate it.

Many unemployed people feel ashamed of their situation.They often feel that other people look down on them, think of them as a burden, and don't want to hear what is going on. They may also feel, "you don't know what I am going through." As a friend of family member it is important to allow time and space for opening up. Suimply saying, "I know this is a rough time for you. I want you to know I am here. If you want to talk I am hear to listen. This is a time I can really be on your side."

For six more tips for turning unemployment into an opportunity to improve a marriage, stay tuned to the South Bay Wellnes Connection Blog, and check out www.stillwatergroup.net for help on other issues affecting families and friends.

Experience Lorraine DiGiovanni,Conversations with the Other Side

Have you ever felt that you have unfinished business with loved ones who are no longer with us?Curious about how they are doing and if they have any wisdom to give you to help you live a happier, more fulfilling life? Need to heal old wounds?

Not sure that this is possible? Skeptical? Believer?

Me, too. All of the above. I can recommend a session with Lorraine DiGiovanni, who is a gifted "spiritualist" and energy practioner. Deeply intuitive, and compassionate, Lorraine takes you through a safe and not scary process that opens a door to the wherever it is we go when we leave our bodies. If you are feeling stuck with a relationship that ended prematurely, this is a way to resolve old issues and move on with your life. Of course, I am a fan of psychotherapy as a path to healing, but sometimes talking directly to that lost someone can reduce the hours on the couch!

Lorraine can be reached at (310)376-3114, or by email at lorraine.digiovanni@verizon.net. Let me know what you think. Virginia Green, PhD, info@creativityunwrapped.com.

Stress and the Dodgers: How to cope with Loss...

The Dodgers are seven games out of first place in the Western Division. What does this have to do with you?

According to today's Daily Breeze, people drink more beer at Dodger Stadium when their team is losing than when they are winning. Why?

1. When we are winning we want to stay with the game -- we don't want to miss anything.


2. When we are losing, the game is at best boring, and maybe even depressing, so we want to escape, but they won't let us go out into the parking lot and run around and come bak.


3. A big margin of loss breed hopelessness, despite the Dodgers' eighth inning theme song, "don't stop believing."
   

As usual, baseball is like life. Success is a wonderful indicator of happiness. The more successful we feel, the happier we are, the more connected, involved, energetic. And success is a state of mind. Baseball has a pretty definite idea of success -- are we winning or not? Life is a little less well defined, thank God.

We get to decide what means success for us, right this minute. Some days getting out of bed and getting in the shower and calling a friend is success. Some days it's nailing that $10,000 project. Somedays it's a sacrifice fly, some days it's a home run. Almost doesn't matter, as long as we experience a little success every day.

How were you successful already today?

Want Better Health Care? Ask for Results!

Do you have any idea why health care costs keep spiralling upward? One reason is because simple and easy solutions often take a back seat to complicated and expensive. Why?

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) is one institution that has implemented its own version of health-care reform, taking overall performance levels from well below average to the top 10 percent in the industry.

One of the key players is Dr. Uma Kotagal, a neonatologist with a deep-seated passion for improving the quality of care at CCHMC. In 1996, when Jim Anderson was named CEO, he convinces Kotagal to lead the hospital's improvement efforts as senior vice president of quality and transformation. Anderson, a practicing attorney with expertise in the quality improvement methods used by manufacturing firms, is joined by Chairman of the Board Lee Carter, who articulates his vision for the hospital as, "We will be the best at getting better."

The improvement effort at CCHMC gains real traction in 2002 with the award of a $1.9 million Pursuing Perfection grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In addition to funding an improvement-science training program, the grant requires that the hospital undertake improvement projects.

Hence, Kotagal develops hospital-wide protocols with proven efficacy—for example, implementing a "forcing function" into the operating room process that keeps patients out of the OR until they've received antibiotics, thus reducing surgical site infections. For another project, she selects the hospital's Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Clinic, in part because its head physician was the only division leader who showed any interest in participating in improvement initiatives.
Because grant guidelines required CCHMC to disclose its performance, however, the CF Clinic's participation resulted in some serious soul-searching. Founded in 1883 as an academic medical center, CCHMC had considered itself to be among the best hospitals in the country, even though it had scant evidence to benchmark its performance against others. But data co-collected by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation instead showed that the outcome for the clinic's juvenile patients measured at the 20th percentile. So hospital staff tackled the situation head-on, finding that the data galvanized families rather than angering them. The clinic went on to change its processes and communications based on input from seventeen patient-parent team members. Six years later, CF patient outcomes had risen to the 90th percentile.

A key takeaway is the power of transparency as a mechanism for change. Another is the motivational value of benchmarking themselves to an internal standard of zero accidents instead of rationalizing poor performance as an unavoidable consequence of the complexity of patient care.

Kotagal's efforts to create a culture of improvement throughout the hospital include the use of employees who serve as internal quality improvement consultants, as well as an in-house education program on improvement science that emphasizes rapid cycles of small-scale change.

Their finding that an accumulation of small changes can add up to significant gains is leading the way for health-care reform that is just as revolutionary as its legislative equivalent.

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Five Week Parenting Group

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