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Victory Greens, Lenox Hill Hospital’s rooftop garden, has recently opened for its 4th growing season

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Victory Greens, Lenox Hill Hospital’s rooftop garden, has recently opened for its 4th growing season

Written by: Pamela Johnson

What is Victory Greens?

Victory Greens, supported by both Lenox Hill Hospital (LHH[JS1] ) Administration and the health system’s GreenBERG, is a rooftop garden created for everyone who works at LHH to enjoy. Last year, I was given the wonderful opportunity to manage the garden, which I believe has turned out to be an even greater gift for me than the success we’ve had for the employees.

Last year, we hosted 8 Snipping Events that were attended by over 600 employees. At the event, employees had the chance to take home fresh herbs and produce from the garden and learn how to use them in new recipes, drink and more. Over 18,000 visits were made to the garden by LHH employees last year, a significant increase over the prior year. One employee who had never cooked with fresh herbs was so inspired by the garden’s bounty that she changed her entire eating habits. She lost 30 pounds and was able to go off of her blood pressure medicine.

Due to the success of last year, this year we are expanding the Snipping Events to include an educational component. We’ll be hosting programs targeting Body, Mind, and Spirit as well as a program on Nutrition and Cooking and one on Exercise. We’ll also be having our first “Mobile Garden” this season, which will allow us to deliver “snippings” to our colleagues at off-site facilities so they may enjoy products from the garden.

Benefits of our rooftop garden- patients and employees

Recent scientific studies have shown that is it critical for a person’s mental and physical health and overall well-being to have at least one direct touch with nature/day. Victory Greens allows us to have a touch of nature, even on a rooftop in NYC.

After a hard shift or a long day, the garden offers employees a place of solace, rest and fresh air, which is important after working inside all day or night. The rooftop garden also presents a wonderful opportunity to meet fellow employees, many of whom would, otherwise, never come into contact with one another. Numerous friendships have been formed over lunch or catching sun rays in the garden. In fact, the garden affords the opportunity to touch everyone in the LHH community including outpatients. Our herbs from the garden are used in patient meals as well as in the cafeteria and in the catered events we often host for guests.

Fun fact: There’s at least one species indigenous to every continent represented in the garden and nearly 100 varieties of plants, herbs, vegetables, and fruit are currently growing on the rooftop.

Giving back to our community

Victory Greens has also led to developing a wonderful relationship with our Community Partner, Harlem Grown. Harlem Grown is an organization whose mission is to inspire youth to lead healthy, productive, fulfilling lives. Through mentorship and urban farming, Harlem Grown increases access to, and knowledge of, healthy food for Harlem residents and provides garden-based development programs to Harlem youth. Our relationship with Harlem Grown began last summer and our programs and connections continue to grow. We have held a number of highly successful outreach events with the Harlem Grown community, including hosting a Teaching Kitchen event which offered information about nutrition, healthy eating and growing herbs and our most recent event in recognition of Earth Day, where we helped children from PS 197 plant flowers around their school. A mix of employees from clinical to non-clinical volunteered to participate in these events and they all have said their experience was as rewarding for them as it was the kids.

How it’s impacted my life

Personally, Victory Greens has had a profound impact on my life. Through the garden, I’ve been able to connect with colleagues I never would have met. I’ve had the opportunity to make a deep commitment to the community around us as well as to make a sincere pledge to help preserve the environment.  I’ve taken an active role in The GreenBERG, Northwell Health’s Business Employee Resource Group focused on environmentally conscientious initiatives. The mission of The GreenBERG is to improve the environmental impact of our facilities by advancing sustainable and socially responsible efforts across Northwell Health and in our communities.

From my involvement with Victory Greens and The GreenBERG, I’ve learned many things and have transformed my view of our planet. I now only wear clothing to work that is made out of sustainable materials, and I have developed a keen interest in trying to resolve recycling and other waste issues that plague hospitals. Who knows what solutions we may ultimately discover, but the magic of Victory Greens seems to be far reaching and highly impactful. Imagine…all that has, and all that may come from an extraordinary rooftop garden at Lenox Hill Hospital.

 

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We’re Truly Ourselves and it makes us stronger

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We’re Truly Ourselves and it makes us stronger.

At Northwell Health, understanding and respecting the values and backgrounds of our patients and employees leads to more open communication, an enhanced patient experience, and improved health outcomes. This is why we continually provide an accepting, welcoming and supportive setting for all – especially those within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) community.

“As an ally of the LGBTQ community, it’s wonderful to work for an organization that is dedicated, passionate and committed to promoting health equity.  I am thankful to have EXPRESSIONS as a business employee resource group where I can give my time outside of my normal job function to do this!” –Patricia McColley, Community Relations, Northwell Health

For the fifth consecutive year, DiversityInc has ranked us as one of the top 12 Hospitals and Health Systems in the nation for diversity and inclusion. We also continue to be recognized as a leader in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Healthcare Equality Index.

Engaging our employees.

We’re pleased to be able to foster and promote EXPRESSIONS, a Northwell Health Business Employee Resource Group (BERG). EXPRESSIONS is comprised of employees who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning (LGBTQ) or who are allies of the LGBTQ community. Through this group, these individuals are able to express their passion for promoting health equity and awareness in a number of ways within the community.

“Over the years, I have gone from being afraid to go to school or work openly to recently marching with Gov. Cuomo down Fifth Avenue with my husband.  It is great to work for an organization where I can bring my whole self to work, feel included, and can promote health services within the LGBTQ community. It is gratifying that at our workplace we all feel comfortable and can work together to make sure that everyone feels welcome.” –Bill Self, Director, Health Sciences Library, Lenox Hill Hospital

Partnering with our community.

We will be taking part in a number of community activities during Pride Month, stop by and say hi, we’d love to meet you.

  • June  9-11th: Long Island Pride Festival in partnership with the LGBT Network of Long Island
  • June 17: Employee seating area at Citi Field on the 2nd annual pride night.
  • June 25: NYC Pride Parade with Lenox Health Greenwich Village.

We recently purchased an immediate care clinic in Cherry Grove, Fire Island, one of the most popular LGBTQ accepting resort communities in the United States. This clinic will enable us to provide immediate/urgent care to the summer residents of the island. We are also a committed partner to these local community organizations:

  • The LGBT Network, Long Island
  • Long Island Crisis Center, Long Island
  • Pride For Youth, Long Island
  • The LGBT Community Center, Greenwich Village

Caring for the transgender community.

To accommodate patients of all ages and at all stages of the transitioning process, we provide a wide variety of transgender healthcare services in New York City and Long Island, including:

  • Primary and preventative care
  • Hormone replacement therapy and puberty blockers
  • Surgical specialty care for gender-affirming surgery
  • HIV prevent (PrEP) and HIV treatment
  • Screening for sexually transmitted infections
  • Mental health care
  • Immunizations
  • Healthy and sexuality education
  • Risk reduction counseling
  • Referral services

At Northwell Health we live by our value Truly Ourselves. We stand united, proud and respectful, always celebrating
our differences. This and every month we stand proudly with our LGBTQ community and celebrate. 

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Made for this™ – our employee promise

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Made for this™ – our employee promise

By Elaine Page, Chief People Innovation Officer

Why did we develop our employee promise?

Our employee promise defines our experience as employees. We wanted to be able to truly articulate who we are and what we do. It’s what you get, for what you put in. In other words, it’s the deal. Made for this defines what our “best days” look like, so we can create more of them for everyone, every day.

We wanted to be able to differentiate our culture and describe what sets us apart – in health care and beyond. This is extremely important because every single person, regardless of their position or the facility that they work at – is truly a part of what makes us special.

Our employee promise will give us a competitive edge – not only will it help us develop, motivate and retain the great people we already have working in the organization, we’ll be able to use it to attract the best new people.

Our journey to create our employee promise

We created an employee promise that proudly and authentically expresses our culture. 2000 employees in 74 sessions— from across various roles and facilities — shared their experience of what it was really like to work here —and didn’t hold back. Their voices were powerful, meaningful and true and their conclusion was clear: being made for this is what sets us apart. Made for this is how we define the Northwell Health difference.

Thanks to their honesty, we now have an incredible employee promise to be proud of. Made by our people, for our people.

Our team members described what a great day looked like and what a challenging day looked like. They said that when they look at their overall experience of Northwell Health, the good times outweigh the tough times. The “best days” outweigh the worst. But, we all want more “best days.”

Made for this – for our people, by our people

We all own the culture of Northwell Health and our experience at work as employees and we believe the culture is ours to shape.

Our team members bring individuality to how we care for people – our patients, community, and each other. We’re not like everyone else….we’re unique and our promise celebrates that. Our reality is powerful, emotional, hard, funny and wonderful, all at the same time. And that’s OK. Because we are a part of something great – we’re made for this.

Are YOU made for Northwell Health?

By creating an employee promise we’re now able to hire the best industry talent that perfectly fit within our culture. We’re flexible, hardworking and not afraid to push boundaries. If you think you’re made for this, check out a role with us – we’d love to welcome you to our Northwell Health family.

blue-triangle Find out more about our employee promise here.