Preventive Care

Our bodies metabolize the excessive sugar in processed foods just as it processes alcohol and other toxins, causing damage to our liver and other organs.

Sugar makes us more likely to develop a variety of risk factors that lead to serious illness, while making us crave sweet even more.

In fact, sugar causes a cycle of addiction in the brain in much the same way as drugs and alcohol—and cigarettes. When it comes to addictiveness, nicotine takes the, um, cake.

Physicians at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), led by outspoken pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, MD, published a paper in February in the journal Nature showing that like alcohol and tobacco, sugar is a toxic, addictive substance. They argue that it should, therefore, be closely regulated, with taxes, laws on where and to whom it can be advertised and age-restricted sales. The researchers said that increased global consumption of sugar is primarily responsible for a whole range of chronic diseases that are reaching epidemic levels around the world.

Is sugar—so pervasive in processed foods, soda and junk food in general—the new tobacco? Let’s see.                                    

It can kill you.

If Lustig and his colleagues—and many other independent researchers—are even half right, sugar and junk food have been responsible for millions of preventable deaths. According to journalist Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation” and the children’s book “Chew on This,” poor diet and lack of exercise may soon surpass smoking as the No. 1 cause of preventable death.

People make huge amounts of money by selling it.

Remember how long the tobacco industry denied the link between tobacco, advertising, and lung cancer and heart disease? We are hearing the same protestations from the processed food industry today. Don’t buy it!

Schlosser, a keynote speaker at the 2012 Union Delegates Conference, recounts how McDonald’s was built. Founder Ray Kroc discovered that profits were higher when kids ate out with their parents. So he lured children in with lollipops. Later, he added a clown. Today, fast food chains hire child psychologists, hold focus groups for toddlers and put 5-year-olds in MRI machines to see which part of their brain is responsible for brand loyalty.

“Think about the profit margin in a soda,” Schlosser says. The raw materials are water, food coloring, sugar and a paper cup. Nutritional value: less than zero. Cost to produce: pennies. Now there’s a profit margin!

Colorado

More than 60 trained champions are helping to motivate co-workers in their facilities to live a healthy lifestyle. Employees, managers and physicians are taking part in health fairs, 5Ks, healthy potlucks and Instant Recess™ sessions throughout the region. The region is also participating in the Spring Into Summer Challenge, a program-wide, team-based KP Walk activity to encourage walking during the longer daylight hours. Teams are forming with people of all fitness levels, especially employees who aren’t normally active. “Any change toward a healthy lifestyle is a success,” says Susan Mindoro, Total Health labor liaison for UFCW Local 7.

Georgia

The Southwood Specialties gastrointestinal UBT in Georgia increased efficiency and saved money by scheduling contract physicians, patients and nurses more strategically. The department handles both anesthesia cases (which require a physician to perform) and also sedations (which can be done by nurses). This Level 4 team figured out how to schedule contract physicians for four days a week instead of five by tracking which patients needed what level of care—making the most efficient use of a very expensive resource. The project required agreement, communication and coordination between the GI providers and teams at four KP clinics in Georgia to schedule their cases accordingly. The project saved $113,000 between April 2013 and January 2014.

Hawaii

After the nurses at Hawaii’s Ambulatory Surgery and Recovery unit created a brochure that standardized the information given to members during their visits, patients have a better understanding of wait times, department hours, visiting hours, where to get parking validated and the location of key departments. The team surveyed selected patients three times from October 2012 to April 2014. Team members tweaked information in the brochure based on feedback, says Maria Scheidt, an RN and member of the Hawaii Nurses Association, OPEIU Local 50. After the first survey, 70 percent of patients reported they received and understood the brochure. After the second survey, 90 percent said they understood it. By the third survey, the nurses had successfully educated 95 percent of patients.

Mid-Atlantic States

From Virginia to Maryland to Washington, D.C., nutritionists in UBTs identified children at risk for obesity and recruited them for Kaiser Permanente’s Healthy Living for Kids and Families course. Piloted in Northern Virginia, the project tracks the success of 11- to 14-year-old patients in establishing healthy eating habits, increasing daily activity and bolstering self-esteem. By drinking less soda or juice, exercising each day and curbing television viewing, a third of participating children at one medical center lost an average of 5.8 pounds in three months. Team members credit their partnership with pediatricians and the families for the results. 

Northern California

The region’s new Real-Time Attendance Estimator does what no other tool has done before: It projects into the future. The tool lets a cost center see how sick day use is affecting its ability to meet its year-end attendance goal by calculating the number of sick days that could be taken in an upcoming pay period without derailing progress toward that goal. If the number of sick days being taken needs to be reduced to meet the goal, the estimator shows that, too. The information is shown as a signal light—easy to print out and post.

Northwest

Fifty-eight percent of staff members in the Northwest who are eligible for the Total Health Incentive have taken the Total Health Assessment—one of the highest participation rates program-wide. Members of unit-based teams are finding ways to help cover each other so they have time to take the assessment. Managers are backing the effort, which is a key step in earning the incentive. “Since the UBT agreed that the THA would be a project, I supported folks completing the assessment during work time since it is work- and goal-related,” says Jason Curl, department administrator for Primary Care at Tualatin Medical Office. 

Southern California

The region’s Jobs of the Future Committee has assigned four subgroups to identify trends in technology and innovative care delivery methods. The subgroups are inpatient nursing, ambulatory nursing/primary care, laboratory and diagnostic imaging. Each is led by labor and management partners. The groups are researching the impact of innovations on today’s jobs and making recommendations regarding training and recruitment of the workforce of the future to best support these initiatives. Work already is starting, for instance, at the South Bay Medical Center, which is exploring new staffing models as part of its plan to open a mini-medical office building—which is in turn part of the larger Reimagining Ambulatory Design initiative. In Kern County, UFCW has collaborated with management on a mobile health van project to optimize staffing for this creative way to deliver care.