Q&A
Update on the Helping Healers Heal (H3) program at H+H facilities
1:55:56
ยท
4 min
Council Member Mercedes Narcisse inquires about the current status and effectiveness of the Helping Healers Heal (H3) program at H+H facilities. Dr. Mitch Katz provides an update on the program's growth and impact.
- The H3 program has grown since the last hearing
- Feedback from participants has been uniformly positive
- The program allows healthcare workers to both receive and provide support
- It addresses various types of crises, not just mental health issues
- There is no difficulty in recruiting volunteers to be 'healers' in the program
Mercedes Narcisse
1:55:56
Last February, the hospital's committee held a hearing on residency conditions where we learned about the Helping Healers Heal or H3 program.
1:56:08
H and H representatives describe this H3 program as being a proactive approach to improve mental health challenges by offering, anonymous internal support hotline, organizing individuals and group peer support sessions and offering training for people in managerial positions to improve the ways that emotional and psychological needs of the healthcare worker are addressed.
1:56:41
Is the H3 program still active and if so, do you have any access to data to see if employees are aware of these options and if they are being used?
1:56:55
I mean, if they are being used actually, sometimes you have program and they're not being used.
1:56:59
Have you received any feedback from employees that have utilized the h three program?
Mitch Katz
1:57:05
Yeah.
1:57:06
So it's only grown since that hearing, and we get a lot of positive feedback.
1:57:10
And one of the nice things about it, which I think is a good model for all helping programs, is you can be on both sides of being a helping healer.
1:57:19
Mhmm.
1:57:19
You can need a helping healer, and you can be a helping healer.
Mercedes Narcisse
1:57:23
Mhmm.
Mitch Katz
1:57:23
Right?
1:57:24
Mhmm.
1:57:24
I think we we make the mistake of think of not recognizing that people benefit from helping others.
1:57:31
So today, maybe I had something awful and I need to talk to Chair Narcisse, and she's gonna support me.
1:57:38
And maybe tomorrow, Chair Narcisse is gonna have a bad day, and she's gonna call me and I'm gonna support her.
1:57:43
I mean, that's the whole that's the peer part.
1:57:46
And that's why we think it's been popular, because it's not it's not an outside person.
1:57:52
It's doctors and other nurses, social workers throughout our system who are agreeing to help each other in times of crisis, recognizing that crisis is not necessarily a mental health problem.
1:58:08
Crisis is what's happened to me.
1:58:10
I saw a lot of patients.
1:58:12
I was moving quickly.
1:58:13
I made a mistake.
1:58:15
I felt bad.
1:58:17
That happens.
1:58:18
That's happened to me, you know, as recently as about 3 months ago.
1:58:21
I I prescribed something that I later decided was not a good choice.
1:58:26
I felt terrible about it.
1:58:28
Right?
1:58:29
So the ability to talk I didn't need to see a mental health professional.
1:58:33
Right?
1:58:33
It was reasonable that I felt that.
1:58:36
I care much about my work.
1:58:37
I care about my patients.
1:58:39
I prescribed the wrong thing.
1:58:40
I felt that.
1:58:42
But the whole point of helping healers heal is recognizing, well, periodically, all of us make a mistake, and none of us are robots, none of us are perfect, and therefore, we help each other.
1:58:55
So I I'll get you, though, the numbers.
1:58:57
I don't have them with me, but I'll get you the numbers of how many interactions we've had.
1:59:02
But it's only grown.
Mercedes Narcisse
1:59:03
Beside that and about feedback.
1:59:04
Because to know if a program worked, you have to have feedback.
Mitch Katz
1:59:07
Feedback has been uniformly positive.
1:59:09
And one of the ways we know this because people volunteer to do it.
1:59:12
We don't pay people to be the healers.
1:59:16
And we have large numbers of people who agree to be healers in all of our facilities.
1:59:22
We've never had difficulty recruiting.
1:59:24
Mhmm.
1:59:24
Okay.
1:59:25
People people like it.
Mercedes Narcisse
1:59:27
That sound like a good plan because especially now because they're not getting paid.
1:59:32
They have issues to pay their bills.
1:59:34
So I'm sure it should be crowded because everybody have issue now.
1:59:39
Because the rent is too kind of damn high.
1:59:43
Do you have any no, that's true.
1:59:46
New York City is tough.
1:59:47
It's a tough city and we want we want doctors inside a hospital, not on the street Strike it.
1:59:54
You have any questions here?
Lynn C. Schulman
1:59:55
Yeah.