Blood drive helps save 30 lives

Human Resources arranged for the Kentucky Blood Center’s Bloodmobile to visit the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department on May 20, and numerous employees lined up to help save lives by giving blood. In fact, LFCHD registered 15 donors, including one first-time donor, resulting in 10 donations. These donations will save the lives of 30 grateful Kentucky patients!

All donors received a $10 Walmart gift card and were eligible to earn wellness points. Donors were also entered in a random drawing for a chance to win a $25 Speedway gift card; the winner of the drawing was Rebecca Young. Congratulations, Rebecca, and thank you to all donors who helped save the lives of those in our community!

Upcoming community events and programs

Thank you for taking the time to review and share information about these wonderful opportunities happening in our community over the upcoming weeks. Remember, it’s easy to share this information! If you would like copies of any of these promotions to share at upcoming events, or with your local neighborhood association, apartment complex, church or stores, request copies from Greg Hiles (in your request, please indicate how many copies you would like). You can also keep an eye on the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department’s Facebook and Twitter pages and share our messages as they appear.

Welcome new employees

Please take a moment to welcome the newest employees of the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department and HealthFirst Bluegrass.

Upcoming community events and programs

Please take a moment to review and share information about some upcoming community events and programs that may be of interest to you or someone you know (click on the pictures to view larger images).

May is Hepatitis Awareness Month

The month of May has been designated as Hepatitis Awareness Month, and May 19 has been designated as National Hepatitis Testing Day in the United States. CDC and state and local health departments use Hepatitis Awareness Month and the National Hepatitis Testing Day as an opportunity to remind health care providers and the public about the priority populations that should be tested for chronic viral hepatitis. Millions of Americans have chronic viral hepatitis; most of them do not know they are infected.

Learn more about hepatitis awareness by viewing the infographic below, or by visiting CDC’s website.

May 15 is National Employee Health & Fitness Day

Today is National Employee Health and Fitness Day (May is also Global Employee Health and Fitness Month), a national observance created to promote the benefits of physical activity for individuals through their worksite health promotion activities.

In case you missed it, the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department’s Wellness Committee signed up the LFCHD to participate in this year’s Bluegrass Wellness at Work Challenge. On this day, the Committee hopes all employees make a pledge to join the challenge and help the department win the Agency Fitness Challenge (you’ll even earn 50 worksite wellness incentive points if you log points each week of the challenge).

How can you help us win this challenge? It’s easy!

• Keep track of your exercise and give yourself 1 point for every 15 minutes you exercise during or outside of work.

• You can count exercise/points accumulated May 4-June 15.

• To streamline the participation in the challenge, Bluegrass Wellness at Work has created a basic app so all participants can track their own activity. The app is available for iOS via the iTunes App Store, Android via Google Play — search for Bwawapp — and is also accessible directly from a desktop, laptop or mobile browser at https://bluegrasswellnessatwork.org/app.

• Make sure to keep a close eye on your work email for instructions on how to log in to add your points — user name and password information will be included via email announcements.

• Once inside your app., on the left hand side, click the add activity icon. Click on the date you completed your activity on the calendar. Type your activity starting time and select the duration and activity from the drop down menu. Then click save and you are done.

Thanks to all employees who have already logged points! So far, our organization already has 632 points!

Barks in the park: 493 pets vaccinated at rabies clinic

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The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department (LFCHD) hosted its annual low-cost Rabies Vaccination Clinic May 8 at Douglass Park. LFCHD employees, along with the help of the Lexington Humane Society, helped protect 493 of Lexington’s dogs and cats by giving out rabies shots on the day of the event. Learn more about LFCHD’s Rabies Control Program by visiting the health department’s website, www.lexingtonhealthdepartment.org.

Thank you to all employees who sent in pictures of your dogs and/or cats in order to help promote the event. Not only were the pictures shared here on Healthy Times, but they were also used to countdown to the event through a series of posts on LFCHD’s Facebook and Twitter pages. In fact, your pictures helped us receive the most interactions to date on both pages. For example, all of our rabies-related posts on our Facebook page only ended up being seen by more than 2,700 people, with reach far extending beyond that (for example, the Lexington Humane Society made a post featuring our promotional flyer the day before the event, which ended up being shared nearly 300 times).

A special thanks to Environmental Health staff and all other staff, who took time out to organize, promote, set up, work and take down for the event! Thanks for your support and all you do to promote public health in the community.

National Women’s Health Week is May 11-17

National Women’s Health Week, May 11-17, is an observance led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health. The goal is to empower women to make their health a priority. It also serves as a time to help women understand what it means to be well.

What does it mean to be a well woman? It’s a state of mind. It’s being as healthy as you can be. And, most importantly, it’s about taking steps to improve your physical and mental health:

• Visit a health care professional to receive regular checkups and preventive screenings.
• Get active.
• Eat healthy.
• Pay attention to mental health, including getting enough sleep and managing stress.
• Avoid unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, texting while driving, and not wearing a seatbelt or bicycle helmet.

We can all support National Women’s Health Week! Here’s what you can do:
• Visit www.womenshealth.gov/nwhw/ for more ideas on how you can spread the word about the importance of women’s health.
• On Monday, May 12, watch the health department’s Facebook and Twitter messages, and share women’s health messages as they are posted.

LFCHD pets put their paws all over social media

Recently, we asked Lexington-Fayette County Health Department employees to send in pictures of their pets to help the Communications Office countdown to tonight’s Rabies Vaccination Clinic on the department’s Facebook (facebook.com/LFCHD) and Twitter (twitter.com/LFCHD) pages. Their debuts blanketed our pages and took social media by storm! Thank you to everyone who took a moment to send in their pictures!

Click thru the red ‘Read more…’ link below to see how you helped us promote this wonderful event.

Blood Drive to be held onsite May 20

Share a little, care a little – donate blood and ‘true’ donors could receive a $10 Walmart gift card, a chance to win a $25 Speedway gift card and 25 worksite wellness points.

The Kentucky Blood Center’s Bloodmobile will be onsite 2-5 p.m. Tuesday, May 20, outside the Supply Room entrance at 650 Newtown Pike.

• Employees donating blood (with supervisor approval) must sign up thru Sara Gabbard/Human Resources (ext. 2301 or email).
• First appointment slot is 2 p.m. and the last appointment slot is 4:45 p.m., with appointments every 15 minutes in between.
• Also available: three (3) “Double Red” donor appointment slots to donate RED BLOOD CELLS at 2 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. (donating red blood cells takes approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes).

Donors are often turned away due to low iron. View this Hemoglobin attachment to learn what food choices to help increase your iron thus making your chances of donating blood greater. You can also view these common questions about blood donor eligibility to learn more about donating blood.