Bremerton Health Promotion Recognized with 12th Excellence Award

Bremerton, WASH. (NNS) -- The Navy Surgeon General's Health Promotion and Wellness Medical Command award, The Blue H for Command Excellence in Health Promotion, was presented to Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB) for the 12th time on, April 8.

"Receiving the award shows that we are not complacent at all in regards to our health, wellness and mission readiness," said Capt. Mark E. Brouker, NHB Commanding Officer. "Our Health Promotion team had a lot of help from a lot of people. The passion for health is palpable by everyone involved. They work hard to promote health and wellness and actively engage in numerous measures to prevent illness, injury and sickness."

"This award is indicative of the high priority that Naval Hospital Bremerton places on prevention and healthy lifestyles," said Janet Mano, Naval Hospital Bremerton Health Promotion Division Head. "It's really an honor to our community partners as well as our health care teams in presenting our 12th award to the command."

Mano notes that a key success for Health Promotion is their continuous outreach to the community. "Most decisions about health and wellness are made at home," she said. "But we also partner will all of our clinics. Our overall goal is in keeping people as healthy as possible and out of the emergency room and not have to patch them up when needed."

What Health Promotion really does is preventive medicine with their health and wellness programs at the deck plates," said Brouker. "It's also reflected in the assistance by others like our command fitness leadership team. They are a good success story. We need all of our Sailors fit. If anyone cannot do the physical readiness test, then they can't deploy and that impacts our mission readiness. All of our active duty personnel are eligible to go on deployment and everyone has got to be ready to do their part. Having Health Promotion help them is huge."

Health and Wellness is defined by Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center as "ensuring healthy living through various sources and education by providing tools to assist individuals in gathering helpful information. The mission is to provide quality Health Promotion products and services with a vision of producing a healthy and fit force. Health promotion and wellness, along with healthy living, continues to address prevention, community health promotion and general wellness."

The Blue H is managed by the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center on behalf of the Navy Surgeon General. NHB Health Promotion found out they would be recognized for their 12th award at the annual Naval Medical Clinic Pearl Harbor (NMCPH) conference in March.

"Bringing the award back and then presenting it to the command in front of everyone involved who helped shows we have set the bar high for the commitments and contributions we do," said Mano. "The award reconfirms and validates that we need to continue to advocate for the needed resources to help our beneficiaries. We're on the right track, and we have a lot of staff involved and committed to continued reinforcement of the preventive principles."

For more information on additional programs, services and events on health and wellness, please contact NHB Health Promotion at (360) 475-4541 and to register for classes call TRICARE at 1-800-404-4506.