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community wellness
The state initiative resonated with
STPH, embracing the concept of
community health that includes
care of employees, as well as
patients, and health of the facil-
ity’s own healthcare strategies.
One of them is that health isn’t
measured only by how many
times a person goes to the hospi-
tal anymore, but also by how often
an individual doesn’t go to the hospital.
This all-encompassing approach means
looking at how a healthcare provider man-
ages a patient’s overall care – and measur-
ing the success of this care. In return, the
patient helps manage risk by taking onmore
personal responsibility for health such as
improving nutrition or weight control.
This is why Ellish seized the opportunity
to have STPH named aWellSpot, a designa-
tion that is helping drive a movement toward
improving the collective health of hospital
employees, patients, and ultimately, the
community.
“Our hospital’s strategy is putting its arms
around it and seeing the looming changes in
our industry with the trajectory that we are a
piece of the health care continuum and the
patient is epicenter,” she says. “This is about
engaging the community on managing risk.”
Getting the WellSpot designation wasn’t
going to be another plaque on the wall to
Ellish. Since St. Tammany Parish Hospital
received the DHHWellSpot (Level 2) desig-
nation in September, it is becoming what she
intends it to be – an ongoing commitment to
promoting healthier lifestyles.
Healthy attention is promoting healthy
change. WellSpot, like the international
Baby-Friendly certification that Louisi-
ana healthcare providers including Och-
sner Medical Center–Baton Rouge and Ter-
rebonne Parish Medical Center recently
earned, is helping fortify and advance com-
munity health.
At STPH, Outpatient Services Director
Melonie Lagalante agrees, adding that it’s
also emerging in the hospital’s other efforts,
including a Guided Infant Feeding Tech-
niques certification, adoption of the 5-2-1-0
Let’s Go Program, and promotion of the Lou-
isiana Tobacco Quitline. At the hospital, it is
maintaining a smoke-free campus, revamp-
ing cafeteria offerings to include healthier
options, partnering withMarathon Health to
open the Center for Health andWellness, and
providing an on-site wellness clinic as a free
benefit to its employees. As the second larg-
est employer in Covington, STPH’s own influ-
ence in promoting a healthier community is
“We’ve embraced the need to change the
health of our community,” says Patti Ellish
of St. Tammany Parish Hospital (STPH)
efforts that contributed to it being named
Louisiana’s first WellSpot hospital.
As hospital CEO and president, Ellish
readily recognized the significance of this
designation, which it received in April as part
of the Louisiana Department of Health and
Hospitals (DHH) Well-Ahead Initiative.