GREENSBURG — It’s not every day one glimpses Decatur County Memorial Hospital’s (DCMH) accounting coordinator swinging from a tree.
That’s one of the many sights the Daily News encountered Wednesday morning, though, during a visit to the hospital as it celebrates “National Hospital Week.”
Accounting coordinator Barb Herbert was guilty as charged in a brief video she made as part of the week-long, hospital-wide festivities, but she wasn’t the only DCMH employee taking part in a bit of good-natured tomfoolery. Employees from eight DCMH departments coordinated to make four videos, three of which were set to the jazzy, funky, hip-hoppy, falsetto-fused rhythms of Pharrell Williams’ “Happy.”
The videos were laugh-out-loud funny, as DCMH personnel from Marketing, Pharmacy, Primary Care, ER and others hammed it up for the camera, dancing and showing their creative, goofy, playful, “happy” sides. According to Herbert, the videos – indeed, all of DCMH’s National Hospital Week activities – are designed to encourage hospital employees to get up from behind their desks for a bit, get out of the office, interact more and “have some fun at work.”
The videos were being exhibited for hospital employees visiting the DCMH Employee Expo Wednesday morning.
Held on DCMH’s new, as-yet unoccupied fourth floor, the Expo, explained DCMH Marketing & Communications manager Lynzee McDowell, served as a kind of stress-reducing role reversal for hospital employees.
DCMH personnel, McDowell explained, are accustomed to being on the other side of the “booth,” as they take part in the hospital’s numerous Health Fairs and various other community events throughout the year and the numerous free health screenings each entails.
McDowell also noted that, although free health screenings were certainly part of the Expo agenda, there were a range of other freebies offered as well. And the Expo itself was only one of numerous activities on offer for employees during DCMH’s National Hospital Week observance.
The week’s other offerings include a free “healthy” breakfast for all employees; a Hospital Week Employee Gift Giveaway; a Tarzan Trivia Game; and ice cream and “gluten free” Italian ice treats.
The week concludes with a hospital-wide employee cookout today.
Herbert chairs DCMH’s ‘Activities Centered around Teamwork’ (ACT) Committee, which assembles and coordinates the National Hospital Week agenda. The ACT, Herbert explained, includes more than 10 DCMH employees and was formed over a decade ago. In addition to coordinating National Hospital Week, the committee also hosts a range of various activities throughout the year, always with the goal of encouraging employee interaction, teamwork and fun.
Over the years, Herbert said, the ACT has held ‘TV Show Dress Up’ contests, a ‘Rooster Crowing’ contest, Haunted Houses, Halloween Costume contests and Fall Festivals. They also hold a team-based scavenger hunt during National Hospital week, which Herbert described as “very popular.” This year’s scavenger hunt will conclude Friday, with the winning team each receiving a “basketful of goodies.”
The yearly Video Contest was scheduled for today with a trivia game being staged based on the details of each employee-made video. 2014 marks the debut of the trivia competition, Herbert said, as in other years employees simply voted for the best video. Individual winner(s) of the contest will receive prizes and other goodies.
Today also marks the conclusion of DCMH’s multi-week “Biggest Loser” contest, wherein 117 DCMH employees participated in a contest to lose weight. Prizes and goodies will be on order for the winners of that contest as well.
DCMH CEO Linda Simmons has been in healthcare more than three decades, starting her career as a nurse. In those days, she told the Daily News, each hospital specialty tended to have its own special week or day.
Over time, however, hospitals around the United States began realizing it was nearly impossible to give everyone due recognition, and certain employees began voicing dissatisfaction with what they viewed as unequal acknowledgement for certain jobs. National Hospital Week thus evolved out of the need to provide equal recognition for the sacrifices all hospital workers make to create a patient experience that’s as comfortable, efficient and successful as possible. The event purposefully falls during Florence Nightingale’s birthday, a 19th century British woman considered “the founder of modern nursing.”
“All our staff is constantly giving back to patients,” McDowell said, adding that hospitals “never close,” requiring someone to be there, caring for patients every day of the year. National Hospital Week, she added, provides DCMH with an opportunity to provide employees with a much-deserved ‘thank you’ for all they provide to the community.