HPMC Occupational Medical Services: Ensuring worker health and well-being at Hanford
In late 2018, HPM Corp. was competitively re-awarded the Hanford Occupational Medical Services contract. HPM Corporation Occupational Medical Services (HPMC OMS) is one of the largest occupational medicine programs among all U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites. As a prime contractor to DOE, HPMC OMS provides comprehensive occupational medicine and health-related services to over 9,000 Hanford workers in professional, technical, administrative and craft occupations.
We just completed the first year of our new seven-year contract with DOE, and I could not be more proud to be a part of this organization. Our dedicated team of healthcare professionals and support staff have the privilege of ensuring an effective, healthy workforce for DOE and other Hanford contractors.
This unique role on the One Hanford Team provides us with ability to interact with nearly every worker on the site. Led by Dr. Karen Phillips, our clinical staff supports the cleanup mission by ensuring the Hanford workforce is able and ready to perform work in a safe manner.
In this last year, we made a concerted effort to engage our stakeholders in our joint mission to safely clean up the Hanford Site. We did this through three focus areas: patient satisfaction, integrated work with contractors and efficient delivery of services.
Patient Satisfaction
In 2019, we implemented a new point-of-service patient satisfaction survey. This replaced the mail-in one we previously used. The new survey is offered to patients at the end of their visits before they leave our clinic. The results have been remarkable. In January, we had 423 surveys completed with an overall favorable patient satisfaction of 99.9%. The immediate feedback has been valuable for all of our staff. This is over 20 percentage points higher than other healthcare providers in the region, illustrating our exceptional level of service to our patients.
Integrated Work with Contractors
Building our relationships with other Hanford contractors is key to providing the high quality services we aim for. Recent examples include our Exposure Response Team that activates to gather information from the worker, the manager, industrial hygiene and others to help make fully informed decisions on patient care.
Another example is our Behavioral Health Services (BHS) work with DOE and other Hanford contractors in providing training and education in stress and change management, opioid awareness and teambuilding. Integrated BHS helps ensure a stable and functional workforce.
We also actively work with safety and health professionals from each contractor. Their focus is providing a safe work environment while our focus is on the safety and health of the worker. This teamwork demonstrates our commitment to the integrity of our mission and to the worker.
Efficient Delivery of Services
In 2019, we conducted over 22,000 exams, testing, and injury and illness visits. We provided 253 worksite services, which include educational presentations, classes, health fairs and consultations at various work sites at Hanford. Our (relatively) small staff of 90 volunteered hundreds of hours in 39 community outreach activities.
I look forward to leading our exceptional team through the next year of change at Hanford. We will continue to make the safety and health of the worker our number one priority.
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 5:01 PM with the headline "HPMC Occupational Medical Services: Ensuring worker health and well-being at Hanford."