The 911 staff at St. Barnabas Hospital along with numerous others at our Brooklyn facilities and Mt Sinai Beth Israel would like to present a minor change to our 911 uniforms. First off, I'd like to say that we completely understand that our uniforms separate us from our competitors, and help us make SeniorCare stand out amongst the crowd. Our uniforms are clean and professional looking as they stand, and I am not going to dispute that fact. On the core side, the calming green places patients and patients family members at ease, and also provide facilities with a professional image of the company. However on a 911 unit; as I'm sure you know, the light green uniform shirt does little to change the way we're seen as professionals as far as the patients are concerned. Many of our 911 patients pay little attention to the color of our uniforms, but simply seek immediate medical aid and transport. We always do our best to provide those two things with clinical excellence and outstanding customer service.

The issue is, in order to provide the level of care that SeniorCare is known to provide, we must get close to patients to move them, or to provide patient care. Some of these patients may be bloody (in which case the uniform shirt is taken out of service regardless), or may practice less than perfect hygiene, if any at all. This will more often than not lead to a soiled uniform shirt. In order to combat this, myself and other employees have been catching ourselves lifting farther away from our bodies, in order to keep our shirt crisp, clean, and professional looking. This can lead to serious back injuries, which leads to increased costs for you, and decreased hours for the injured party. A darker green (logistics style) button up, or polo shirt (which would remain TUCKED IN AT ALL TIMES) would help to mitigate that problem, and also keep our 911 staff clean and presentable for the patients who DO pay attention to our uniforms. The darker colored shirts would also keep the trucks on the road, rather than out of service for uniforms, although most of us do try to carry a second shirt in the event that one becomes soiled.

Furthermore, it' s not ALWAYS the patients who soil our shirts. Everyday wear can cause our shirts to become blemished around the sleeve ends, and across the collar; especially during the summer months where we sweat profusely while walking up numerous flights of stairs per day, and then carrying ill patients back down many of those stairs. We sometimes use a wall to lean against whilst carrying a patient, to ward off possible injury to ourselves and our patients due to falls, which creates a dirty look on the side of the shirt that comes in contact with the wall. These stains are not easily washed out, due to the fact that our shirts have patches which contain very vibrant colors, and epaulettes that may be altered by the use of bleach on our uniforms.

A second issue that is cause by button up shirts specifically, is that even in short sleeves they're quite uncomfortable to wear in the summertime. We both know workplace fatigue plays a major part in the safety at work, and level of professionalism that employees display. It is very difficult to work in a shirt that is uncomfortable, and in turn that causes employees to become easily worn out, tired, and agitated. Even though most of us ALWAYS do our best to present ourselves the best way that we can; it is difficult to maintain the positive attitude that SeniorCare is known for while we are uncomfortable in our uniforms, and trying not to soil the shirt while performing our daily tasks.

I took the initiative and had a custom polo shirt made with the SBH logo on the left side, and the patches in place similar to where they are on the job shirts. The shirt I had made was black simply to match the sweaters, however a hunter green would also look fantastic with our uniforms. I am not pushing to get away from the green shirts, what I would like to address is the SHADE of green. I went with black because black may or may not be be more cost effective in bulk than a green polo. I have NOT been wearing this shirt for work, and have NOT been representing SeniorCare or St. Barnabas Hospital with it. I simply had a sample put together to show you and the rest of our supervising staff what it would look like if we WERE to add this shirt to our approved uniforms.

Once again, I fully understand why our uniforms are the color they are, and am only presenting this change to you due to concerns from the 911 staff here at SeniorCare. The uniform could be adapted for the core side also, however I'm mainly asking you to consider this for the 911 personnel. I've attached images of the sample shirt to this email, however if you'd like to see it in person I'd love to come show it to you. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to read this, and I apologize for sending such a lengthy email. Any consideration on the matter would be greatly appreciated by our 911 staff. Have a fantastic rest of your day!