RISEing to the Occasion

How Bayhealth is investing in team member wellbeing

BY ROSI WURSTER, DNP, RN, MPH, NEA-BC, CEN

HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS make up a large percent of the workforce in Delaware. Healthcare organizations like Bayhealth understand that focusing on their team members’ health and wellbeing translates into better care for patients.

As part of Bayhealth’s commitment to its team members, we provide numerous ways to support them. This past December, we unveiled our BeWell initiative, which focuses on five areas of team member wellbeing, including financial, mind/body, social, career, and community. As a component of BeWell, Bayhealth is implementing a new offering to team members called RISE (Resiliency in Stressful Events).

RISE ensures that Bayhealth team members have constant access to confidential support from a group of peer responders should a stressful event occur at work.

Though healthcare can be a very rewarding career, it is also very demanding and challenging, especially for those involved in the bedside care of patients. We saw this first-hand throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and even beyond because of the significant healthcare workforce shortages that followed. While Bayhealth has dedicated significant efforts to recruit new team members, we also recognize, just as importantly, the need to retain all employees, new and existing. Focusing on our team members’ health and wellbeing is critical to that goal.

After a stressful event occurs, such as a death, an unexpected outcome, or complicated care, the team members involved may find themselves needing support. That’s where the RISE peer responders come in. Available 24/7 to their fellow team members, these peer responders are trained to provide support and resources to that team member to help them cope with and overcome any potentially negative impact the event could have on their mental and physical wellbeing.

RISE is based on a model developed by Johns Hopkins. In early January, representatives from Johns Hopkins conducted a day-long training at Bayhealth to educate about RISE, outline the benefits it has to team members’ mental health after a stressful situation, and discuss how to implement it. Since then, efforts have been focused on the recruitment and training of peer responders.

Each year, we ask our team members to tell us what is important to them to feel well-supported, enabling them to do their best work. This means being engaged in the organization at every level: within their departments, among their colleagues, and in every encounter they have with our patients. Programs like BeWell and RISE are developed based on feedback from our team members. Our goal is to create an optimal environment that supports their professional success while ensuring they remain healthy and balanced.

Bayhealth is proud of our team members and committed to being a great place for them to work. We invite anyone interested in learning more about working at Bayhealth and joining an organization deeply committed to caring for our community to visit www.Bayhealth.org/Careers.