Adventist Health St. Helena is the First System Hospital to Achieve Blue Zones Worksite Certification

St. Helena, CA – Adventist Health St. Helena has reached a historic milestone in a transformative three-year well-being journey to improve the health and happiness of their employees, becoming the first Adventist Health hospital to achieve Blue Zones Worksite Certification in Blue Zones history.

Adventist Health St. Helena has achieved certification status by making measurable improvements in well-being and key HR metrics, and by making permanent and semi-permanent changes to make healthy choices easier for all – associates, visitors, and patients. As a result of this work, Adventist Health St. Helena has lowered their voluntary turnover overall, have significantly improved their RN turnover (33% in 2021 to 22.2% in 2024), and have seen measurable improvements in overall well-being.

To achieve this status, Adventist Health St. Helena worked with Blue Zones to optimize the workplace environment and sharpen policies.

National Blue Zones worksite experts helped Adventist Health St. Helena leaders develop this evidence-based plan for improving employee well-being and met certification standards, including:

• Addressing burnout with enhanced mental health support: Offering resources and programs, both in-person and digitally, to address depression, stress, and anxiety.
• Fostering stronger connections between colleagues: Building communities through moai social groups, employee recognition, leader-associate connections, group volunteer opportunities, and family social gatherings. More than 29% of associates completed a 10-week moai.
• Improved healthy food options: Redesigning the onsite café’s menu, improving vending so machines are now stocked with 50-75% healthier options, and hosting produce markets so associates could purchase fresh food during the workday.

• Leadership development: Providing education on well-being and leading well-being training to monthly Clinical Department leaders; with 74% leadership participation
• Work-life balance: Increasing opportunities for employees to downshift while at work and delivering consistent messaging encouraging the same while away from work.
• Transforming spaces and campus environments: Creating outdoor walking paths with printed maps for associates and visitors to move naturally during the day, and signage and tools to encourage on-campus movement and refreshing indoor spaces.
• Putting people first with well-being policies: Offering continuous well-being offerings and activities, including Purpose Workshops and adding Flex Days for Well-being to encourage downshifting.

Blue Zones is the nationally recognized leader in well-being transformation, and its Worksite Certification model draws upon 20 years of experience in community and longevity science to empower organizations to cultivate thriving work environments.

In St. Helena, the in-depth, multi-year commitment integrated the Blue Zones approach into the hospital’s culture – aligning people, spaces, and policies –to foster lasting change.