Staff from the section of occupational and environmental medicine at Dartmouth Health’s Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center recently received an award from the federal government in recognition of a program they developed for the state of Vermont. The team, led by Karen L. Huyck, MD, PhD, MPH, were given the Resilient Workplace Innovation Award by the United States Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Disability Employment Policy for their work with the Vermont Retaining Employment and Talent After Injury/Illness Network (VT RETAIN).
DOL recognized Huyck and her colleagues for developing VT RETAIN’s Resilient Workplace Certification program, to support workers with mental health conditions, recognizing gaps in available resources and addressing them. The project, currently in its final year, was funded by a $22 million grant to the state of Vermont and subaward to Dartmouth Health. The VT RETAIN Program helps workers with work-limiting physical and mental health conditions stay in the workforce.
Vermont was one of five states chosen by DOL to receive funding to create a RETAIN program. RETAIN projects include a combination of medical provider services, stay-at-work/return-to-work (SAW/RTW) coordination services, and other SAW/RTW services.
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.