Paula Seaman has led the way in building a suite of services that truly supports our workforce.
Michael T. Lynch, MD, MBA, president, CEO, and interim chief medical officer of Alice Peck Day Memorial HospitalDartmouth Health member Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital (APD) earned third place in the HealthForce NH Innovation Challenge for its Providing EMDR and Equine Resources (PEER) Program, an innovative, whole-person approach to supporting and retaining frontline workers. The program, supported by the Couch Family Foundation, was awarded $40,000 in funding as part of the multi-stage competition, which recognizes solutions to New Hampshire’s healthcare workforce challenges.
The PEER Program designed by APD’s Chief Nursing Officer, Paula B. Seaman, MSN, DA, RN, CENP, offers timely, individualized mental health support to healthcare workers and other essential professionals. By removing traditional barriers to care, the program helps participants sustain their wellbeing while continuing to care for their communities.
“The statistics around burnout for nurses and other caregivers are sobering,” said Michael T. Lynch, MD, MBA, president, CEO, and interim chief medical officer of APD. “Paula Seaman has led the way in building a suite of services that truly supports our workforce. The genius of the PEER model that she created is its innovative approach to how we provide mental health support for caregivers who in turn provide vital safety net resources for our communities.”
Frontline workers across healthcare and public service sectors continue to face significant stress and burnout. Recent data shows that 65% of nurses report burnout, 25 to 30% are considering leaving their jobs due to burnout, and nearly 50% report symptoms of PTSD, trauma, or extreme stress.
The PEER Program uses a flexible, layered model designed to reduce barriers to care by offering no-cost, no-referral support services, including:
• Access to licensed mental health clinicians and EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy: Clinicians at both APD and in the local community provide APD employees with up to five or six sessions at no charge. These clinicians are trained in EMDR therapy, an evidence-based intervention for more immediate symptom relief.
• Confidential care: Services are available both on-site and off-site and are not documented in employee medical records, helping to reduce stigma and encourage participation.
• Equine-assisted support: Drop-in and structured sessions offering a non-verbal, relationship-based pathway to healing through partnerships with High Horses in Sharon, VT, and Moonrise Therapeutics in Taftsville, VT.
Over the past two years, more than 50 APD employees have participated in EMDR therapy through the program. Many have reported meaningful reductions in distress and trauma symptoms, even as some seek support for the first time.
Second place in the competition was awarded to a program from the Work Health CoLab, co-founded by Karen L. Huyck, MD, PhD, MPH, FACOEM, occupational and environmental medicine physician at Dartmouth Health’s Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine.
About Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital
Known for personalized, high-quality care, Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital (APD) has been a community-based healthcare organization in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont since its founding in 1932. A member of Dartmouth Health, APD has been recognized nationally for quality care. Its areas of clinical excellence include surgical services, primary care, geriatric care, sleep health, and emergency services in partnership with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. The APD campus is also home to a senior living community with assisted and independent living facilities. Learn more at alicepeckday.org.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital (Children’s Hospital at DHMC/CHaD) and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.