Customer Service Superheroes Recognized
/Watch two videos in one: County executives honor employees for being tops at customer service, and the employees finishing the statement "Excellent Customer Service is..."
Watch two videos in one: County executives honor employees for being tops at customer service, and the employees finishing the statement "Excellent Customer Service is..."
She always stands…and also stands out.
Jayne Reinhardt, community health promotion specialist with the County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA), will be getting a 2012 Outstanding Community Partner award from Community Health Improvement Partners (CHIP). The award, given to “those who go above and beyond to volunteer their time, contribute their ideas and expertise, and provide leadership,” will be presented to Reinhardt next week.
“I feel honored,” said Reinhardt, 51, who seldom sits because of a back injury. “I love working with them (CHIP). I love their initiatives. They fit in well with Live Well, San Diego!”
Live Well, San Diego! is the County’s ongoing initiative to improve the health and well-being of local residents.
Reinhardt has worked for HHSA for almost 20 years, first as an Alcohol and Drug Prevention Specialist and then in many roles in her current position in the Central and South regions.
Reinhardt works on policy and environmental change, promotes healthy behaviors, and helps link people to medical providers and resources to improve their overall health.
“When people have a medical provider or better health homes, they are going to be healthier,” Reinhardt said.
She is also actively involved in promoting mental health and participated in the creation of depression screening events which take place every October. Reinhardt worked on the region’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan, funded by the County and created by CHIP, and was instrumental in getting faith groups and organizations to participate in its development.
“I’ve worked in so many different areas, but I’ve always found a great deal of passion in all of them,” added Reinhardt, who now works with community partners doing outreach and providing resources to youth and the homeless.
“I am excited. I am working to create change. I am trying to make things better.”
The clean-shaven men at the start of CECOvember.
A group of employees has embarked on a hair-raising fundraising effort for the San Diego County Employees' Charitable Organization.
The men are growing moustaches this month to coincide with the CECO membership drive running through November 30. It’s modeled after Movember, an annual event in which men grow moustaches to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues. The County crew is calling their twist on this CECO Hair for Care.
The team members have photos of themselves clean-shaven and will be documenting their progress through the month. They are asking colleagues for support by making a donation to CECO. You can send a contribution to CECOvember at 5580 Overland Avenue or Mail Stop O-25. For other questions, contact the soon-to-be-moustachioed Mike Davis at Michael.Davis@sdcounty.ca.gov.
To learn more about CECO or make a donation not involving whiskered men, visit the CECO website.
Martha Bartzen, RN, east region public health nurse manager
San Diego County is known nationally for emergency preparedness.
To keep that reputation, County employees participate in emergency drills throughout the year.
What if we needed to quickly vaccinate hundreds of people? How does HHSA staff prepare for that? Actually it’s one of the drills they do often – and the drill offers flu shots to the public at the same time.
Thursday, HHSA staff held a drill at the Ronald Reagan Community Center in El Cajon that doubled as free flu shot opportunity to East County residents.
“If you can kill two birds with one stone, all the better,” said Martha Bartzen, RN, east region public health nurse manager. “After a drill like this, everyone knows in a time of disaster what they have to do and how it works.
“It’s similar to going to CPR training,” she said. “You do this drill every year so if we were to have an emergency, we could call staff and we could have a clinic like this set up within a couple hours.”
Plus HHSA is able to help protect the public against the flu.
“Flu is a big thing and we’re working to protect the public against outbreaks,” she said.” We’ve had outbreaks in the past so by getting this done we’ll protect our fellow East County neighbors.”
HHSA has been doing mass vaccination drills since the 2007. Clinics like this were used to provide the public with vaccinations during the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic and in both 2010 and 2011 for pertussis.
Bartzen and her staff began preparations for Thursday’s mass vaccination in September, although the location was booked last year.
“You have supplies that need to be ordered, the vaccine and you have to organize the staff,” said Bartzen. “We have each of the managers in the region identify ten members of their staff who want to do this.
“There are now so many HHSA employees who enjoy coming here that they have to select the ten because there’s a lot more than ten who want to come.”
Public Health Services, Child Welfare Services and Family Resource Center staff from Lemon Grove and El Cajon were all involved in staffing the clinic.
“Of course the nurses are giving the vaccine and work triage, but the majority of the staff is made up of office assistants, social workers, eligibility workers and health educators,” said Bartzen. “When you have a clinic or shelter that opens up in an emergency, you’ll have nurses in the medical area, but you’ll have different workers in other areas. It’s a team approach.
“You never know when a disaster is going to happen and you have to be able to get your staff going in a short amount of time and we’ve been able to do that,” she said.
Another element this year was having employees shadow each other as a way more people are trained in different roles in case of an actual emergency.
“One of the things we’re doing this year is succession planning where we have people shadowing us so they can see what it’s like to be a site manager or the lead in triage or operations,” said Bartzen.
“We need to be able to come together as a group to support whatever disaster happens and it’s like they say, ‘It’s not if it’s going to happen, it’s when,’ and we have to be ready to go!”
News about and for county of San Diego employees.
Search County News
Archive of Stories
Copyright @ San Diego County InSite News 2018. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by Squarespace.