Increasing EAP Utilization Hack #16: Use a Good Health Supply Line

I want to share with you an employee assistance program utilization improvement hack I created that will help boost your EAP utilization nearly overnight. It is called the "Good Health Supply Line®". I created this service as part of the EAP program I owned in the early 90's, but since I have never seen it duplicated, I thought I would share it and let you consider it for your EAP. You are welcome to use this idea by changing the name of the service to one you find suitable, but different than mine. The following background and rationale for this utilization hack is obvious. Many employees will never phone the EAP, and so you need to make every reasonable attempt to reach them. This does the trick. Create an order form with a large menu of wellness topics that include handout titles, tip sheet titles, or booklets on workplace wellness topics, such as those distributed by Abbey Press using their product called "CareNotes." Or, you can use the workplace wellness tip sheets from WorkExcel.com (purchase the entirely library here). On the order form, allow employees to confidentially choose five topics/titles. The form should be mailed via U.S. Postal mail to the EAP office. The EAP then fills the order and mails it back to the employee or family member. Distribute a postpaid envelope with it the order form for best results. Emphasize confidentiality. Only the EAP will receive the order from the employee. Postal mail is confidential of course. The beauty of this outreach technique is the opportunity to promote your EAP with a cover letter designed to encourage the employee or family member to visit the EAP for the issues or problems that concern them, identified in the titles they chose. Do this once per year. Have the employer to reimburse the EAP directly or make it a part of your service. The titles of the booklets distributed to employees are not shared with the employer. This is also an important part of the service and key to its effectiveness.

Can Mindfulness Help to Intervene with Our National Opioid Epidemic?

A new federally funded research project will attempt over a five-year period to demonstrate that mindfulness  will reduce a person’s craving for opioid painkillers and improve the ability to cope with the intense pain for which these drugs are most often prescribed. There is evidence already that mindfulness can have some impact on managing pain. (Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one's attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment, which can be developed through the practice of meditation and other training.) Here is the essence: The research will attempt to restore restoring brain levels of endorphins in patients with chronic back pain who are being treated with prescription opioids. This, in turn, will make it potentially possible to reduce addiction occurrence rates. The subjects will be military veterans who suffer with more pain, trauma, and serious problems with opioid addiction. The advantage of the research will be to extend its benefits and approach to opioid addiction treatment to other people in the general population. Here's what to do: 1) Check out this news article here. 2) Follow the research 3) Find and find out what they are doing and whether you can apply these techniques to supplement recovery and follow-up work if you are currently working with recovering addicts. This is a non-medical, non-invasive approach, and I would not hesitate to consider whether these approaches might help addicts, frankly, because prior research from the same researcher shows that mindfulness has an impact on some of this stuff. This researcher should be posting a twitter account or updates that can be tracked by the general public. Consider: "Prolonged opioid use changes the way the brain functions, leading to heightened pain sensitivity, insensitivity to natural pleasure, and vulnerability to addiction—factors that may result in opioid dose escalation, which can end in overdose and death. Based on the results of previous research, Eric Garland, Associate Dean at the University of Utah hopes that with this grant he will find evidence that mindfulness meditation training through this research will restore proper function to the brain’s opioid receptors.

Don't Keep Parents in the Dark about Club Drugs

If you are an EAP, be sure to offer parents information about Club drugs in addition to more common drugs of abuse like marijuana. Parents want to be informed and armed with information about substance abuse, but the one area of drug abuse that they will have the least knowledge about are "club drugs." Club drugs is a moniker assigned to psychotropic, elicit substances that are commonly used on dance floors, at raves, and in other party locations that are often hidden or otherwise protected from police raids. (Raves are wild, often drug-fueled parties.) Club drugs tend to be used by teenagers and young adults. Club drugs include GHB, Rohypnol®, ketamine, MDMA (Ecstasy), Methamphetamine (Meth), and LSD (Acid). Any of these substances can be used as date rape drugs. Help parents know where to go to find more information about these substances. https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/club-drugs is the go-to source of information sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Did you know that in the past year 2.3 percent of 8th graders used Meth? Addiction can occur with one dose. What you do think the long-term prognosis for a great future might be for an 8th grade Meth user? Not good. You'll find a lot of information on the Web site above. Consider this resource on teen drug abuse at WorkExcel.com