The staff at WVU Medicine St. Joseph’s Hospital is inviting the Buckhannon-Upshur community to step it up – quite literally – with a new initiative geared toward getting West Virginians to move more.
Following in the footsteps of Governor Patrick Morrisey’s #MountaineerMile initiative, a statewide effort intended to promote more physical activity, encourage healthier lifestyle habits and improve health outcomes, dozens of hospital employees are taking a brisk 1-mile walk around the hospital campus at noon every weekday.
St. Joseph’s Hospital President and CEO Skip Gjolberg said the local effort got underway a few months ago after Morrisey launched the statewide initiative.
“I met the governor’s wife, Denise Morrisey, at the inauguration, and we started talking about hospitals and, ‘What are we doing to improve health outcomes besides taking care of sick people? What are we doing on the health and prevention side of things to keep people healthy?’”
West Virginia’s First Lady subsequently sent Gjolberg a link about a weekly walk that Dr. James Nemitz, the dean of the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg, had implemented.
“He said he was doing this in accordance with the governor’s four bulletpoints about health, and one of them was the Mountaineer Mile, so Dr. Nemitz started the Mountaineer Mile at the Osteopathic School, and the governor’s wife said, ‘Can’t you do that, Skip?’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, absolutely. I’m on it.’ So that’s how it started, and we’ve been doing this now for at least a couple of months.”
Initially, the walking group met once a week on Thursdays, but cardiologist Dr. Daniel Brito told Gjolberg that wasn’t enough.
“Dr. Brito said, ‘We really should be doing this every day.’ He said let’s name it the Moon Walk Noon Walk, and we put together a little flyer with him in a space suit,” Gjolberg said.
Hospital employees from a variety of different departments – housekeeping, nursing, respiratory therapists and more – meet daily at noon to the right of the hospital’s main entrance.
“We’re doing the noon walk every day now, and whether people come as a group or they get out here by themselves, it’s just good to see people outside getting some exercise,” Gjolberg said.
The Moon Walk Noon Walk aligns with one of the hospital’s yearly goals to provide educational wellness classes and programs for its staff.
“I asked our health insurance carrier if they could give me any kind of aggregate data on what health issues my staff face based on their health insurance claims, and they gave me a list of the top 10 health insurance issues, so number one was hyperlipidemia, which is high cholesterol,” Gjolberg said. “Hypertension and diabetes were also up there.”
The hospital CEO said community members are welcome and encouraged to join the walks.
“[Walking] is super important for your cardiovascular system, and the other thing people need to really be doing — and I think it gets under-emphasized — is strength training because your musculoskeletal system is an organ, and it’s hugely important. It affects your overall well-being and health, including your ability to manage your sugars, as well as your insulin sensitivity or insulin intolerance, and other related factors.”
On Tuesday, community members, including county commissioner Kristie Tenney and Lauren Winans of 304 Today, joined hospital staff for their daily mile walk. Participants are encouraged to share photos of their walks on social media with the hashtag #MountaineerMile to help inspire others.
