Black History Month Event Celebrates Excellence, Looks to Future

On March 8, Wellstar’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hosted a fireside chat with leaders,  Beth Kost, Kem Mullins and Julie Teer, who also serve as Executive Sponsors to our Women’s Business Resource Group.  They engaged inn an important conversation about celebrating women in the workplace.  Focusing on the national theme for Women's History Month, "Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories," they discussed women who have positively impacted their careers, the importance of mentorship and sponsorship, and advice they would give to female leaders of the next generation.

Kost is senior vice president and chief compliance officer of Wellstar, Mullins is executive president of ambulatory and business development, and Teer is senior vice president and president of the Wellstar Foundation. 

Women's History Month celebrates the contributions of women, past and present. President Jimmy Carter instituted the first National Women's History Week in March 1980. He said, "From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often, the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well." On March 8, we joined the world in celebrating International Women's Day and incorporate it into our month-long celebration of women's history.

Learn more about diversity, equity and inclusion at Wellstar.

Watch the virtual event below.

Wellstar Health System is proud to announce that Goodr, a sustainable food waste management and hunger relief company, just unveiled Goodr Mobile Grocery Store on March 8 at Atlanta City Hall. Wellstar is proud to sponsor this 26-foot truck stocked with grocery items, including fresh produce, milk, eggs, and shelf-stable items – all for free. The truck aims to bring Goodr's signature free grocery shopping experience to food-insecure communities.

Fully kitted with refrigerators, freezers, and shelving, families will enjoy an experience much like shopping for goods at a local grocery store. Beyond that, every aspect of the Mobile Grocery Store is about access – from the wheelchair ramp to the resource room for private health screenings or social services consultation.

Wellstar’s Community Health Needs Assessments identified food insecurity as a key social determinant of health impacting the well-being of the communities we serve across the state in both 2019 and 2022. In late 2020, Wellstar joined the Goodr partner network and launched the Wellstar Mobile Markets, a uniquely branded variation of the pop-up grocery markets. The Mobile Markets have reached communities in metro Atlanta and beyond.

“I’m honored to represent Wellstar Health System, the Wellstar Foundation, and our generous donors who have helped make this vision, the Goodr Mobile Grocery Store, a reality,” said Julie Teer, SVP, Wellstar Health System, and president, Wellstar Foundation. “At Wellstar, we truly believe each and every person deserves to live their healthiest life, regardless of their circumstances. And, for a person to live their healthiest life, they need sustainable access to fresh, nutritious food.”

Wellstar is incredibly excited for this next chapter in our partnership with Goodr, and we are honored to be the exclusive healthcare partner and sponsor for this new and innovative way to serve communities.

To truly improve the overall health of our communities, it will take all of us working together to address the social determinants of health. The Goodr Mobile Grocery Store is a perfect example of what we can achieve when we work together.

Wellstar has been dedicated for the past 30 years to making Georgia a healthier place for everyone, and it is because of philanthropy that we are able to reinvest in the communities we serve. We appreciate the opportunity to partner with Goodr to offer these critical resources to more people through the Goodr Mobile Grocery Store, and we are excited to see how our organizations can continue to work together to further improve the health of our communities.

This month Wellstar Health System announced it is extending its partnership with Moth+Flame to further utilize its virtual reality (VR) training technology throughout the enterprise.

Moth+Flame is an award-winning VR communication technology developer and premier enterprise-grade immersive learning provider offering innovative and adaptive learning programs for mastering technical and cognitive skills. Their platform includes content focused on emotional intelligence. When learners put on their headsets, they inhabit and interact with immersive simulated environments. They decide in the moment how to respond and see for themselves the impact their words and decisions have on others — and reflect on how to improve. Trainees receive an empathy rating score at the end of their session.

Last May, Catalyst by Wellstar led Wellstar’s first-ever VR-based leadership development training in collaboration with Moth+Flame. This was Moth+Flame’s first healthcare partnership, and the use of this technology continues to expand within Wellstar’s enterprise.

Following the training, 97% of participants recommended the virtual learning experience to others. They also reported that the training reduced their anxiety around difficult conversations by 57%. As a result of the successful pilot, Wellstar decided to offer VR emotional intelligence training regularly.

“We believe strongly that immersive learning is the future of learning and builds more confidence through practice,” said Kevin Cornish, CEO and founder at Moth+Flame. “Using virtual reality puts you inside of a difficult conversation and gives you a chance to learn in a safe simulated environment.”

The VR emotional intelligence training encourages Wellstar’s employees to build composure and gain practical experience in a highly realistic scenario by navigating difficult conversations and testing resiliency in an emotionally charged environment. This experience helps Wellstar’s workforce develop strategies to build situational awareness and prioritize composure, critical thinking and conscious emotional responses when engaging in triggering conversations.

By gaining conversational expertise and knowledge, Wellstar’s team will know how to respond in real scenarios with the confidence to interact appropriately and strategically.

“The realism within Moth+Flame's VR experiences, from using real-life actors, dramatically increases the emotional connection to the content and helps learners retain the information they learn. We are grateful for Moth+Flame's partnership in helping introduce VR to our leaders,” said Steven LeClercq, executive director of learning and onboarding at Wellstar Health System.

This use of innovation keeps Wellstar on the leading edge of training and team development, and the organization will continue to explore use cases for this technology within a clinical setting.