User-friendly hospitals - hospital-sponsored health programs and classes

Nation's Business, May, 1988 by Carol Dilks

Users-Friendly Hospitals

Personal Management

To Your Health By Carol Dilks

Two nights a week, Sandy Walker crosses the Canadian border on a special health mission. After locking the door of her Newport, Vt., card shop, she drives eight miles to the Quebec town of Stanstead, where she dives into a college pool for an hour of swimming.

Walker knows exactly how hard to swim to increase her heart rate enough for a good aerobic workout. That is because she has been swimming for three years as part of a healthd program -- one sponsored not by the college or her local aquatics club, but by Newport's North Country Hospital.

North Country has sponsored health-promotion programs on and off the hospital grounds since 1982. At her latest sign-up, Walker drew the lucky number: She was the 10,000th participant in the hospital's programs, and she got a commemorative T-shirt and some local attention. And through her involvement, she has picked up a new view of the hospital: "I feel they're interested in you not only when you are sick, but when you're well."

Hospitals are working hard to promote that idea. An estimated 85 percent of them now offer staff-led courses and lectures on physical and emotional well-being. Some of these courses are logical extensions of medical services, such as lifestyle support groups for recent heart-attack victims; others go farther afield, to subjects like weight control and aerobic dance.

Much of this new activity is the result of a squeeze on the hospitals: Their liability-insurance costs have gone up, and a new system of uniform Medicare disbursements has slowed revenue growth. These developments have driven hospitals to seek new sources of revenue, like health-promotion programs, that involve lower risks of lawsuits.

The programs generally run in the black. Though some lectures are free, most courses and seminars have fees, usually under $50 per person. Classes, at corporate sites are billed either by the hour or per person. The most popular programs are nutrition education, stress management, hypertension control, prenatal education, physical fitness, stopping smoking, aerobic dance, weight control, back care, cardiopullmonary resuscitation (CPR) and diabetes management.

To attract more participants, some hospitals have worked up courses for relatively narrow audiences. The many offerings at Arlington Hospital in Arlington, Va., include seminars on dealing with depression, bereavement, divorce, job less or promotion; alcohol and drug-abuse awareness; plastic surgery; self-esteem and adolescence; and exercise for the elderly. The hospital also has support groups for people with diabetes, herpes, cancer and arthritis.

Arlington Hospital is considering opening satellite centers to help meet rising demand. Among other hospitals with such centers is Scripps Memorial, in La Jolla, Calif. It has 13 off-campus sites, including one that is in the middle of a large San Diego shopping mall.

Other hospitals have rebuilt their facilities to accommodate health-promotion programs. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, in Melrose Park, Ill., has gone a step further by building its own physical-fitness facility.

In addition to offering programs for patients and the general public, many hospitals also market corporate programs. These take the form of employee health surveys, individual risk assessments, cholesterol screenings and health fairs.

Trash haulers at Browning-Ferris Industries, in Hatfield, Pa., were concerned about back problems, so the company's safety manager contacted the Graduate Hospital of Philadelphia and set up a seminar with nurse-practioner Sharon Gates. She presented a 90-minute lecture and demonstration, which cost the company $150.

A group of 45 haulers (out of a company total of 50) learned about the structure of the spine. They simulated their tasks for careful observation by Gates, who zeroed in on what they were doing wrong. She demonstrated how to lift objects properly and had the workers practice the new method. After six months, the workers were stil applying what they had learned. Said Safety Manager Bob Carroll: "Up to now, no one has been out with a bad back." NB

PHOTO: Sandy Walker of Newport, Vt., got her certificate for being the 10,000th participant in North Country Hospital's wellness program.