Reach out for health: a corporation's approach to health promotion

Corporation health programs are one strategy to reduce health care costs. This paper describes a health and safety program at the Southern New England Telephone Company that was started in January 1983. The three phases of the comprehensive statewide wellness program called Reach Out For Health are described. Eighteen different health education and fitness courses help employees reduce health risks and achieve healthier life-styles. Several motivational techniques are presented. Evaluation components of the program give feedback to all concerned.     

Self-directed health plans: Web-enabled alternatives to traditional managed care

New approaches for organizing, purchasing, and financing health care services are rapidly emerging as viable alternatives to orthodox managed care. One of the more intriguing approaches, Self-Directed Health Plans (SDHPs), empowers consumers as the agents of change and decision making in the continuing quest for health system reform. Combined with a host of newly evolved Internet support utilities, SDHPs represent a highly advanced paradigm for health insurance. Most importantly, SDHPs promise to genuinely harness the power and dynamism of free-market solutions in ways that are financially and socially sustainable, and to pick up the innovation process where health maintenance organizations left off. Thus, with SDHPs surfaces new hope that the problems facing America's health care system are not intractable to private sector creativity.     

Applying collaborative practice to health promotion

BACKGROUND: Since the publication of the Health of the Nation document in 1992, collaborative practice has been at the forefront of health service reform. While other professional groups have readily adopted health promotion and collaboration, the nursing profession has experienced difficulties in changing practice and some have resisted reform. The author examines the issues surrounding nursing's apparent hesitancy in adopting collaborative working practices. CONCLUSION: To promote collaborative practice, nurses need to be aware of the range of teams and agencies involved in health promotion and acknowledge the client as an equal member of the team. However, better education, training and shared learning initiatives are essential to improve collaborative practice.     

A storefront approach to health promotion

Peace Arch Hospital's Wellness Centre in White Rock, British Columbia, represents a unique model that allows a hospital to bring health and wellness activities to the community in a coordinated and exciting way. Sponsored by the hospital and funded by the hospital global budget, the Wellness Centre has passed its eighth anniversary and recently implemented a three-year strategic plan that will carry this visionary outreach program to the next millennium.     

A holistic-existential approach to health promotion

Health promotion seems to be implicit in many nursing theories, but the theoretical and philosophical basis of health promotion in nursing is not always explicitly stated. The interpretation of health promotion is closely related to the interpretation of man, health, illness and nursing. There is a need to clarify, refine and redefine health promotion in nursing because the concept is partly nonspecific and has not been used to identify a distinctive nursing focus. The aim of this study was to formulate a stipulative definition of health promotive nursing with a holistic-existential approach. A philosophical frame of reference in combination with conceptual analysis and theoretical synthesis were used as the methodological approach. The philosophical framework served as a basis in selecting the nursing theories and influenced the analysis. Two nursing theories and one nursing model were selected due to their influence on Norwegian nursing and because of their philosophical basis. Through analysis and synthesis of the selected nursing theories, the concepts man, health, illness/disease and nursing were analysed. The paper proposes a stipulative definition of health promotion in nursing based on a holistic-existential approach, supported by five necessary conditions. The definition and conditions needs to be further investigated by both empirical studies and by comparing with other relevant nursing theories, in order to formulate theoretical statements. The proposed definition may be the first step in a process of developing a theoretical framework of health promotive nursing with a holistic-existential approach.     

From preventive health behavior to health promotion: advancing a positive construct of health.

A concept analysis of preventive health behavior provided the foundation for this review of current health promotion research in nursing. Studies selected for review described or explained behavior for health promotion, illness prevention, or preventive health behavior. The major focus of this critical review is on the conceptualization and measurement of health promotion behaviors being investigated. Despite nursing's claim to an holistic idea of health, the biomedical model continues to influence indicators of health behavior and the context for promotion of healthy life styles. Major issues for future health promotion research relate to the lack of attention to theoretical definitions and multidimensional aspects of health behavior, and the triad of national strategies for health promotion are discussed.     

Transgenerational health promotion

The Adult Health and Development Program (AHDP) is an intergenerational, interdisciplinary health promotion and rehabilitation program in which nursing and other college students are paired with older adults to engage in activities to improve their health and well-being. The purpose of this article is to describe resources and strategies used to implement a new program. The University of Delaware's program uses the ACAEM Paradigm developed by the AHDP at the University of Maryland where the program has existed for 27 years. However, the University of Delaware emphasizes the concepts of transition as described by Schumacher and Meleis and adult learning theory. Older adults are often the most open to education and other forms of support when they need help in making a change or transition in their lives. Schumacher and Meleis contend that transitions are a central concept in nursing and propose a model of transition in which education is the primary modality for preparing for transitions. The model also specifies ways to measure desirable transition outcomes.     

Nursing students' attitudes to health promotion to: implications for teaching practice

For several decades now the World Health Organization has indicated the need for a reorientation of the health services away from focusing solely on illness and disease to one that considers both disease prevention and health promotion. Successive publications that guide public health policy both nationally and internationally reiterate the need for health promotion and the principles of health for all to become integral to the fabric of health care delivery. The role of the nurse as health promoters is well recognized. However despite acknowledgement by professional nursing bodies and nurse educators that health promotion forms a central tenet of undergraduate nurse education curricula, there are varied approaches to teaching and learning and little formal evaluation of the consequences of approaches taken. The aims of this study are to identify current health promotion curricular content within the Irish undergraduate nursing programme context; to measure nursing students' attitudes towards health promotion and to examine nursing students' reported lifestyle behaviours.     

Measuring incentives to health promotion in older adults. Understanding neglected health promotion in older adults.

Health promotion increases longevity and allows older persons to maintain an independent and satisfying life. Determining reasons why an older person participates in health promotion activities through incentives may allow further insight into ways to promote health. As deeper understanding of motivation is gained by health professionals, successful influences to health behavior may be clarified. A nurse's role in health promotion could be to assist in planning a health promotion program, especially after incentives have been identified for a particular person. The Incentive-Health Promotion Scale revealed that the major incentives to health promotion in study sample were "feel good" and "fitness and health".     

Long-term care: a health promotion challenge

There is a lack of health promotion for the elderly residing in long-term care facilities. It becomes imperative therefore for the nursing profession to readjust its thinking and practice to include health promotion strategies and interventions for institutionalized elderly in the long-term care sector. From using the empowerment theory in the discussion it is clear that nurses can help the elderly receive health promotion strategies and interventions to help the older person make informed choices about their lifestyle, health and treatment. The elderly population continues to grow and more than likely will spend some part of their life in a long-term care setting. Evidence from studies performed by Robertson (1991), Caserta (1995), Phillips (1994) and McBride (2000) suggests that health promotion efforts positively correlate with improved physical and psychological elements of health for the elderly. Nurses largely determine the kind of care that is given and thus can influence the quality of life that elderly client's experience. By advocating for health promotion interventions and strategies for their elderly clients, nurses are demonstrating to the community, their patients, and institution that nurses do have the power to make and influence change for the better. Nurses advocating for health promotion for their elderly patients not only empower choice, but also create an active and involved elderly population. Health promotion exists at all stages of life and does not cease when one is admitted to a long-term care facility (Hutchings, 1999; McBride, 2000).     

Nursing and health promotion: conceptual concerns

The importance of health promotion to nursing is now well established However, different interpretations of health promotion exist It is argued that many allegations of nursing's inadequacy in this field are misplaced and to a large extent result from the confused and variable ways in which the term health promotion is used Concepts of health promotion in general are considered and compared with usage of the term in nursing literature The contribution of nursing to health promotion and health education is discussed and some curncular issues are raised     

A university-wide health fair: a health promotion clinical practicum

Can sophomore baccalaureate students in their first clinical experience develop a health promotion activity to meet the needs of a university community? The authors describe how students, focusing on wellness and the nursing process, developed a university-wide health fair; the learning experiences, both planned and serendipitous; the importance of collaboration in health promotion and disease prevention activities; and the promotion of nursing's presence on a university campus.