The COVID-19 pandemic has elevated an already pressing issue—the emotional health, well-being and resilience of front-line care providers—to the next level of urgency.

For most of the last three years, Nneka Okoye, occupational health and safety manager at Sibley, and her colleagues have worked hard to bring a multitude of health and wellness tools, programs and classes to Sibley Memorial Hospital, hoping to help the entire Sibley team build their resilience in the face of challenges by practicing mindfulness and self-care.

Their work started out with a solid foundation thanks to the information and experts available through Healthy at Hopkins—the system-wide program from Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Office of Well-Being. Healthy at Hopkins includes a set of standardized tools accessible via a web portal and fitness classes. The office provided a liaison who worked with Sibley’s team to create hospital-specific goals and help them identify tools to meet them.

Okoye created even more educational opportunities that are exclusively available at Sibley. The team introduced a monthly lunchtime in-person seminar series that featured topics such as work-life balance, prevention of muscle aches and pains, and how to tackle depression. Additionally, a 30- or 45-minute in-person meditation session was available at the hospital during lunch time.  

Okoye attributes the success of the programs to the unprecedented support from managers, directors and leaders, who make health and well-being a strategic objective for the entire organization.

“At first, it was really hard to disconnect from work to go meditate,” says Theresa Henderson, office coordinator for the hospital’s occupational health office. “But it was a suggestion of my manager, who said, ‘No, go. We’ll handle it while you are away from your desk.’ Now I encourage other people I talk to at Sibley to do it, too, to make time, because the outside challenges will be there, but how you react and relate to them can change if you know how to disconnect, relax and let go for even a minute.”

COVID-19 has temporarily limited learning opportunities in person, but many tools were already online or easily moved to a webinar platform. Not surprisingly, since the pandemic gained speed in March, Okoye reports that the digital tools are getting used now more than ever.

“People were distracted before, but COVID-19 has brought to the forefront the idea that we need to take care of ourselves, to make our bodies and minds resilient enough to have the strength to fight this virus, protect our families, and meet the demands required of us as health care workers,” she says.