MedStar Health has over 300 locations in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. and employs more than 31,000 employees. Their work with the AHA Suicide Prevention in the Health Care Workforce Collaborative focused on combatting behavioral health stigma within their system.
Prior to their work with the collaborative, MedStar Health had already been prioritizing suicide prevention and employee well-being. They had implemented a few interventions that aligned with the AHA Suicide Prevention in the Health Care Workforce Guide and had identified an organizational goal of widespread Stress First Aid (SFA) training. They hoped joining the collaborative would help guide the expansion and implementation of this training.
At the beginning of the collaborative, they created a timed roll-out around other organizational campaigns. They also worked to make the training material brief, with a focus on easy action steps and quick connection to resources. Initially, they planned to create a mandatory intro to SFA training for all associates. The organization had already completed smaller rollouts of this training that received positive feedback. One story the organization highlighted was following completion of SFA training, a nurse manager started to invite her staff to indicate their stress level using the Stress Continuum by placing the appropriate color circle next to their name on their assignment board. One day, one of her nurses places a red circle by her name, indicating she was in crisis. The nurse manager was able to pull her from patient care, meet with her and connect her with the appropriate mental health support resources. The success and impact this training had at a small level was a motivating factor in wanting to make it a mandatory program system wide.
Being a part of an AHA led collaborative gave this organization’s team increased credibility leading to their initiatives becoming an increasing organizational priority. The team was also able to cite what other organizations were doing and, through the collaborative, had access to helpful materials and expertise. At this point, system wide, MedStar has trained 5% of their employees. With the momentum gained from their participation in the collaborative, the MedStar team is hopeful that all employees will soon be trained in Stress First Aid.
