Denver Health is committed to the health, safety, and well-being of employees and patients.
We sat down with workplace wellness strategist Kristin Ellis, MPH, to learn more about Total Worker Health® initiatives for Denver Health’s nearly 7,500 healthcare professionals. Denver Health has been a Health Links® member since 2016. Kristin introduced current projects focused on employee well-being and highlighted Denver Health’s community-based projects, including the Food@Work Initiative.
We embrace a Total Worker Health approach, which means we focus on the whole person. Our employee well-being programs are designed around four key areas: physical well-being, financial well-being, mental and emotional well-being, and social well-being. Our approach is participatory and not tied to insurance premiums or medical plans. Instead, we focus on providing the right well-being benefit or resource to the right person at the right time.
We offer a wide range of programs, initiatives, and benefits within each of these areas. Our goal is to educate employees about the various opportunities available to them, ensuring they know what resources exist, how to access them, and whom to contact when they need support. We understand that not every program will be right for everyone, but we want employees to be informed to take advantage of the right resources when the time comes.
We have a comprehensive food and beverage policy that acts as an umbrella for several healthy guidelines. This policy prohibits the selling or serving of sugar-sweetened beverages on the Denver Health campus. Additionally, when food is served at meetings, the policy requires us to provide a healthy alternative for every unhealthy dessert item. For instance, if someone orders brownies, they must also offer a healthier option like fruit. This ensures a balanced approach, promoting healthier choices for all.
The Food@Work Initiative is important to Denver Health because of our unique role in the community. Located in downtown Denver, we serve as a safety net hospital, providing care to all patients and community members regardless of their ability to pay.
We believe it's essential to set a strong example in our community and ensure that our facilities represent a place of health and well-being. When patients, visitors, and employees step through our doors, they should immediately feel supported in their journey toward better health.
Our approach to the Food@Work initiative is multidisciplinary. Internally, we collaborate with several groups, including human resources and workplace well-being, as well as our food and nutrition services team, which includes everyone from our general manager to our registered dietitians and diet technicians. We also work closely with the patient experience and volunteer services teams and partner with our local public health department.
Externally, we collaborate with our vendors, particularly those who supply food and beverages for our vending machines and cafeteria. We work to align vending offerings with our goals, elevating the importance of healthy options and minimizing options we prefer to avoid in our vending machines. For example, we don't sell or serve sugar-sweetened beverages, and our vending supplier, Canteen, has been instrumental in ensuring that our machines consistently adhere to this policy.
Aligning all the internal stakeholders was one of our main obstacles. When we launched our Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Initiative in 2018, we knew it was crucial to get everyone on the same page. This involved months of strategic planning, events, and discussions to share perspectives, address concerns, and present data to build consensus. Fortunately, Denver Health’s leadership was supportive from the beginning, but the challenge was ensuring alignment across all groups.
Another significant hurdle was overcoming the stigma and misconceptions surrounding healthy food and drinks—namely, the beliefs that they don't taste good, are too expensive, or aren't in demand. To counter these myths, we used data, organized tasting events, and offered free samples to demonstrate that healthy options are just as delicious and accessible as their less healthy counterparts. This helped prove that our patients, visitors, and employees do indeed want these options.
Anticipating potential concerns, we set up forums for employees to voice their opinions, we created Q&As, FAQs, and a dedicated email inbox where employees could share feedback. One key lesson we learned is that if people don't understand the rationale behind a change, they will find it much harder to support it. That's why ongoing education and transparent communication were—and continue to be—critical in overcoming obstacles and ensuring the success of our initiatives.
The best advice I can offer is to start by getting the right people in the room. Who needs to be involved? Whose perspectives matter? And who will be impacted by the initiative? While this group might change and evolve over time, it's crucial to recognize that this isn’t something one person, department, or group can tackle alone.
Begin by identifying a few key goals or initiatives to focus on. Trying to overhaul your entire food system or environment all at once can be overwhelming, so it's important to start small and be intentional. For example, you might set a specific goal like increasing the availability of healthy snacks in the gift shop. The more focused and specific your objectives, the more manageable the process will feel.
© 2018 Health Links
