Caregivers need care, too. While therapy dogs often help in patients’ treatment at Penn Medicine, one nurse realized the pooches’ presence benefited the nursing staff, too. “Research shows patient interaction with animals offers physiological benefits including decreased heart rate and blood pressure,” according to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP). But HUP’s Pups focused on patient access to the pets.
“They would play with the dogs and it made a huge difference on the stress level and morale in the Emergency Department,” Heather Matthew, the nurse at HUP told Penn Medicine. “So, I thought of teaming up with the SPCA to bring them directly to staff.” With support from her chief nurse executive and clinical director of emergency medicine, she was able to make the regularly reoccurring Pet the Pooch program, basically, where staff can come in and de-stress by petting and cuddling adorable puppies.
According to the website, it’s among the first programs in the nation to use playing with pets to lower employee stress levels. Could this be a new healthcare industry trend?
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It seems Matthew hopes so. Because of its early success, according to the site, she plans to expand the program to hospitals nationwide.
“I think the people who care for everyone else get forgotten sometimes,” Matthew told Health Leaders Media.
Why is the program such a hit with nurses and clinicians? It’s not a big secret. Matthew said:
“Basically, when you take that five-minute break out of your day, the pick-me-up, that makes all the difference. That animal isn’t judging you, they don’t know that maybe you’ve had to give a family some bad news and your heart is breaking over it.”
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And the program doesn’t just help nurses find new strength and compassion; it helps the pets–all adoptable–find new homes. (There are kittens, too, if you aren’t a dog person. But look at these gratuitous photos of clinical staff happily playing with dogs–how can you not be?)
But it’s not just the work of one person who made this happen. Clinical Director of Emergency Medicine AnnMarie Papa told Heath Leaders Media, “really phenomenal shared governance” is “in the lifeblood” of nursing at HUP. Matthew told HLM she felt very comfortable sharing the idea with her bosses once the lightbulb turned on.
It’s simple innovation like this, with dedicated caregivers and teams who work diligently (and don’t worry about following rigid hierarchies or top-down strategies), that make the true difference in healthcare.
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