Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital’s ‘PEER’ program takes third place at HealthForce NH Innovation Challenge

Dartmouth Health member Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital (APD) earned third place in the HealthForce NH Innovation Challenge for its Providing EMDR and Equine Resources (PEER) Program, an innovative, whole-person approach to supporting and retaining frontline workers. The program, supported by the Couch Family Foundation, was awarded $40,000 in funding as part of the multi-stage competition, which recognizes solutions to New Hampshire’s healthcare workforce challenges.

The PEER Program designed by APD’s Chief Nursing Officer, Paula B. Seaman, MSN, DA, RN, CENP, offers timely, individualized mental health support to healthcare workers and other essential professionals. By removing traditional barriers to care, the program helps participants sustain their wellbeing while continuing to care for their communities.

“The statistics around burnout for nurses and other caregivers are sobering,” said Michael T. Lynch, MD, MBA, president, CEO, and interim chief medical officer of APD. “Paula Seaman has led the way in building a suite of services that truly supports our workforce. The genius of the PEER model that she created is its innovative approach to how we provide mental health support for caregivers who in turn provide vital safety net resources for our communities.”

Frontline workers across healthcare and public service sectors continue to face significant stress and burnout. Recent data shows that 65% of nurses report burnout, 25 to 30% are considering leaving their jobs due to burnout, and nearly 50% report symptoms of PTSD, trauma, or extreme stress.

The PEER Program uses a flexible, layered model designed to reduce barriers to care by offering no-cost, no-referral support services, including:

• Access to licensed mental health clinicians and EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) therapy: Clinicians at both APD and in the local community provide APD employees with up to five or six sessions at no charge. These clinicians are trained in EMDR therapy, an evidence-based intervention for more immediate symptom relief.
• Confidential care: Services are available both on-site and off-site and are not documented in employee medical records, helping to reduce stigma and encourage participation.
• Equine-assisted support: Drop-in and structured sessions offering a non-verbal, relationship-based pathway to healing through partnerships with High Horses in Sharon, VT, and Moonrise Therapeutics in Taftsville, VT.

Over the past two years, more than 50 APD employees have participated in EMDR therapy through the program. Many have reported meaningful reductions in distress and trauma symptoms, even as some seek support for the first time.

Second place in the competition was awarded to a program from the Work Health CoLab, co-founded by Karen L. Huyck, MD, PhD, MPH, FACOEM, occupational and environmental medicine physician at Dartmouth Health’s Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine.