HJAR Jul/Aug 2020

DIALOGUE 12 JUL / AUG 2020 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS   doing. We have spent the time making sure that our patients are served. Editor UAMS and hospitals around the state are implementing and enhancing mental and wellness programs for employ- ees. Can you share what UAMS is doing to address this? Dr. Smith Dr. Erick Messias was tasked with the job of developing that by Chancellor Patterson. Dr. Messias created a three tier approach. The first is what he calls support- ive conversations; he arranged for people like the chaplain service and our employee assistance program to have a mechanism for anybody that wanted to have these sup- portive conversations about how stress- ful things were, or how worried they were about caring for a certain type of patient. The second tier is a student and faculty well- ness program, and there are offerings into that program, plus there is access to one on one sessions. They have also facilitated some Zoom groups to have people talking together. Finally, Dr. Messias, who is a psy- chiatrist and on our faculty in psychiatry, worked with us to look beyond what we can do in student wellness and in employee/ faculty wellness. How do we access our services here, and have psychiatrists and psychotherapists and psychologists avail- able? Other mental health professionals can certainly access our services through AR-Connect. We’ve had some of those con- tact us, and we’re happy to help, because if you’re a small provider or a small clinic, I expect it can get pretty tough out there, and you’re not having the usual social contact. Our building is usually full, but for about eight weeks, everybody was being seen on the digital platform, so I’d maybe see four people in the course of a whole day’s work in person. Having lost that informal interper- sonal contact is tough for people, even apart from the crisis. One of our leaders set up a Zoom lunch for some of the psychiatrists. Anybody that wanted to come in at lunch could Zoom, or there’s even a room where people could come in at lunch to have suf- ficient social distance. Most of the people needed to come in on Zoom, but people would still be able to eat lunch together, and just that little bit of social support helps. Editor Is there a stigma, either real or per- ceived, for employees who take advantage of the in-house mental health support that is being offered? Dr. Smith Unfortunately, there is always stigma about mental health and substance abuse. It has decreased in my career, but it hasn’t gone away. I’m sure there is some stigma, but I don’t know that in the last eight weeks or so I’ve talked to anybody that says they need to get somebody in, and they won’t come in. Usually, somebody’s calling pretty frantically to get somebody in right now. It may be there, and we need to be see- ing twice as many people as we’re seeing, but I can’t be sure.