Healthcare is a fast-changing and stressful industry. In the past year, 93% of healthcare professionals reported feeling stressed, and a further 76% said they felt burnt out.
This is an issue for us all, as healthcare workers play a vital role in supporting our health and in building strong, healthy communities.
That’s where your spa comes in. Spa treatment like massage therapy can help medical professionals mitigate stress, improve their sleep, and unwind after a long, difficult day.
So, after nearly two years of life in a pandemic, it’s finally time to start giving back to the medical professionals in your community. Here are a few ways your spa can help.
Stress for Medical Professionals
Healthcare workers often report that their work is deeply rewarding, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t also extremely stressful. However, unlike most of us who work a 9-5, the stress that medical professionals face has different “triggers” that spas should be aware of.
A 2018 survey of medical professionals found that the most common sources of stress were:
- Understaffed hospitals
- Burnout from nursing shortages
- Lack of access to mental health care
- Poor work-life balance
- Bullying and harassment in the workplace
Since the pandemic struck, new sources of stress like a lack of PPE equipment and fear of infecting loved ones have piled on to existing stressors. It’s little wonder that many folks consider packing up and leaving the profession altogether.
A spa day won’t immediately fix these issues, but it might just help. What you cannot afford, however, is to allow your spa to turn into a stressful experience for healthcare workers who have given up their precious free time to visit your spa. Here are a few ways you can better cater to healthcare workers.
Make it Simple
Medical professionals are constantly juggling commitments to families, friends, work, and events. That means they’re often stretched thin, and might not have the time, money, or energy to drive out to visit your spa.
To make it easier for medical professionals, consider hosting outreach events where you visit hospitals and offices. Of course, you’ll have to adapt your service if you’re visiting a hospital, but you can still offer services like massages and body treatments.
You should also consider reducing the cost of spa days for medical professionals, as many folks working in healthcare suffered sudden financial insecurity when their partners lost their jobs. You may also need to reconsider your booking system to cater to shift workers. This doesn’t mean you need to stay open until the early hours, but consider providing exclusive business hours for medical professionals.
Air Ventilation
Hopefully, vaccines and restrictions are drawing us closer to the end of high transmission rates of COVID-19, but variants are still contributing to high infection rates. To put healthcare professionals at ease, you simply must invest in adequate air ventilation that reduces the risk of infection.
Additionally, poor air ventilation can lead to air pollution that causes difficulty breathing or aggravates existing conditions like asthma and other respiratory illnesses. The last thing you want is to bring on an asthma attack for a medical professional who is meant to be relaxing and breathing deeply.
By investing in air filters, you can reduce the risk of transmission and will minimize the effect of any harmful chemicals that might be in your treatments. This promotes the overall well-being of the healthcare workers who visit your spa and allows them to focus on enjoying the experience.
Prepare
It’s hard to know where a medical professional has just been, or who they have been helping in the past few hours. Oftentimes, this means that healthcare workers are running straight from work to your location. So, at your spa, it’s imperative that you plan ahead and ensure that every possibility is thought of before a client walks through the door.
One of the best ways to do this is to prepare easily digestible, high-energy foods which can quickly satiate a healthcare worker who may not have had time to eat a full meal all day. For example, some of the most energy-dense, easily digestible foods are fruits and nuts. So, you might consider stocking up on watermelons, cucumbers, avocado, and oranges as these fruits will also help healthcare workers hydrate after a hard day’s work.
It’s great to see so many spas open up their services to medical professionals in an effort to help local healthcare workers. You just need to do a little planning to ensure the experience is a good one that leaves doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers feeling refreshed and valued.
