New Employee Relaxation, Wellness Room Designed to Help LAACC Staff Rest and Recharge
As they enter the room, visitors are greeted with a wall-length image of a misty forest lined with tall trees. A sign reads, “You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf,” and a large picture window lets in an abundance of natural light.
The Los Angeles Ambulatory Care Center’s (LAACC) new Employee Relaxation and Wellness Room is intended to be an oasis where LAACC employees are welcome to rest, relax and recharge in 15-minute intervals throughout the day, said LAACC Site Manager Nikki Baker. It is stocked with coloring materials, Whole Health informational brochures and soothing music selections.
The room opened on Oct. 3, 2023. Baker was inspired to create it when VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System Interim Medical Center Director Rob Merchant shared stories of other medical centers around the country creating similar spaces.
“I said to myself, ‘wouldn’t it be cool if GLA (VAGLAHS) had something like this?’” said Baker. She set out on a mission to make it happen, enlisting the help of Whole Health Program Manager Jennifer Allen.
“Obviously post-COVID everyone is so burned out,” said Allen. “I think by Nikki making something like this, it shows the people at her site how much she really cares about their wellbeing.”
One health system found that 15 to 20 minutes spent in a wellness room helped staff experience an average 69% decrease in stress, 38% increase in cognitive alertness and 36% increase in positive mood, according to the article “Health Systems Create New Spaces for Employee Well-Being” by Megan Headley, published in Health Facilities Management magazine in 2022.
At LAACC, Baker found a room that was underutilized, worked on it a little bit at a time and, along with Whole Health, enlisted some help from VA’s Interior Design and Engineering departments to furnish and decorate.
Baker envisions the room as a place where staff can go if they’re having a very stressful day. “The room will be a place where people can recharge, breathe and restart their day,” she said.
The whole process took approximately a year. “We chipped away at it,” said Baker. “It was a labor of love and we pulled it together.”
Happier staff leads to happier patients, research suggests. VA medical facilities with stronger employee engagement showed higher patient satisfaction and lower turnover among registered nurses, according to the study “The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government, a Prescription for Better Performance, Engaging Employees at VA Medical Centers,” by Partnership for Public Service and Boston Consulting Group, published in 2019.
Merchant expressed his appreciation to Baker’s team for embarking on the project. “Providing a warm, welcoming space to have even a few moments to relax, reset, and reconnect is incredibly important if we’re going to provide the best quality care to Veterans. I want to thank Nikki and the whole LAACC team for embracing this opportunity and bringing this room to life.”
Allen added that the room sends a powerful message about prioritizing staff wellbeing. “We really need to start focusing on employee wellness and the things we can do to make our employees feel better about coming to work.”
Employees at LAACC can visit the room on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. On Tuesdays, they can check out the key in the Patient Education Resource Center (PERC), and on Wednesdays and Thursdays they can check it out in the administration suite.