October 31, 2014 – Vending Machine

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Anchor lead:  A novel vending machine helps nursing moms at Johns Hopkins, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Johns Hopkins is leading the way in helping support breastfeeding moms when they return to work.  Meg Stoltzfus, a work life expert at Johns Hopkins, developed a novel vending machine to make sure moms could easily obtain materials they need while on the job.

Stoltzfus:  We’ve been having a problem at Johns Hopkins where nursing moms would forget their pieces to their breast pump when they would come back to work. I couldn’t figure out how to solve that problem.  In this healthcare environment that’s 24 hours a day, our only option was to create and install a vending machine where moms could buy what they needed during their work shift.  We provide hospital grade breast pumps in all of our mother’s rooms at Johns Hopkins so moms just need to bring their accessory kit. They may forget something such as their bottles or the tubing that would connect to the breast pump.   :32

Stolzfus says to her knowledge, no other employer nationally has undertaken such a remedy, but she’s had plenty of interest from other employers since the machines have been developed.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.