Chaplaincy Presentation: Creating Safe Spaces
Dr. Paula Rayman brings her extensive background in studying ways of improving the workplace to a new MGH program - the "Caring for Caregivers" project. The project, funded by a grant from the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center, involves improving the work environment by bringing about "systemic change" at MGH, and creating a work place that supports employees. Dr. Rayman is currently involved in the first step of the project, which involves interviewing hospital leadership, includ-ing Evelyn Bonander, Jeannette Ives Erickson, VP of Patient Care Services, and Jeff Davis, Senior VP of Human Resources, about their thoughts, ideas, and vision for an ideal workplace. The second phase of the project, expected to begin next Spring, will involve working with some of the patient care units to create a vision of what caring for caregivers should be. According to Dr. Rayman, a lack of understanding of each other's work is a barrier between departments in the hos-pital, preventing caregivers from knowing how to support each other. She says the leadership at MGH has been very united in creating a "community of caring." She mentioned that some of Jeannette Ives Erickson's goals for helping employees support each other include creating mentorship, adding flexibility and more control of one's time, and improving the nurse-to-patient ratios. Dr. Rayman encourages employees to create safe spaces at work. She notes that one reason health-care professionals suffer from burn-out is because they are "lacking in spiritual renewal." America will increasingly need healthcare as the population ages and immigration increases, which emphasizes the need to recruit and retain healthcare professionals. Dr. Rayman points out that while healthcare facilities need safe spaces more than other environments, they tend to have the least amount of safe space. She recommends doing little things to create a safe, healing place, because even taking such small steps as stopping to sit in the chapel for a few moments, or adding flowers, photos, and children's drawings to patients' rooms, can make a difference. She also recommends going slow enough to create simplicity in our thoughts and actions, and making things in our workspace as quiet and calm as possible. Dr. Rayman conducted a similar study at Fleet Bank. Part of the project involved collecting data about workers - what caused them the most stress, how well they were sleeping, what time they were getting home. She was able to convince managers to allow workers to create a "quality of life" environment. This involved "Sacred Time" - two hours during which the worker was not inter-rupted by having to answer the phone, speak with colleagues, or attend meet-ings, but was permitted to just work. Productivity increased, people made fewer mistakes, did better work, and were able to get home on time. Com-munication between group members also improved. Dr. Rayman hopes to achieve similar successes at MGH. According to re-search cited by Dr. Rayman, despite the belief that long hours indicate a dedicated, hard-working employee, stress and long hours actually cut down on productivity. She says eliminating the dichotomist (either/or) thinking that currently dominates the American workplace is very important. A "win-win" agenda insures quality of work and quality of life. For additional information, or to con-tribute your thoughts about the Caring for Caregivers project at MGH, please contact Dr. Rayman at the Chaplaincy at ext. 6-2220.
09/02