Prisma Health Tuomey's HealthWorks clinic welcomes new physician

Prisma Health Tuomey Hospital has provided health care to employees of Sumter's businesses and industries for nearly 20 years. The program continues to evolve to serve the needs of the community's growing workforce.

This year, Tuomey and the Palmetto Health-USC Medical Group welcomed to the helm a physician with expertise in occupational and preventive medicine, public health and population medicine.

Malgorzata "Margaret" Hasek, M.D., began her tenure at HealthWorks in April and is enthusiastic about continuing to take care of Sumter's employees.

She has an impressive history of work with federal occupational health clinics in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. She provided on-site health and wellness care for federal employees and conducted surveillance and fitness-for-duty exams for the FBI, U.S. Park Police and Secret Service. She has also served as a medical officer conducting law enforcement reviews for the Pentagon. Hasek has both trained and worked at the Veterans Administration, most recently evaluating veteran disability claims and clinically in urgent care and occupational medicine clinics.

As the HealthWorks staff physician, Hasek will provide Sumter's key industries with work-related injury care, preplacement health exams and return-to-work exams, as well as fitness-for-duty exams for occupations such as firefighter, truck driver, construction and manufacturing employee. She enjoys working closely with employees and employers and, when appropriate, can provide process improvement suggestions to reduce lost productivity and work in other ways to keep employees healthy, engaged and at work.

"I like the variety available in preventive and occupational medicine," Hasek said. "I get to work with different types of employees in various industries, and I am continually re-educating myself. It keeps me on my toes, and I enjoy the pace, the one-to-one patient care, the community relationships and the specialization of each industry. I also enjoy advocating for the importance and value of wellness and prevention."

She is especially attuned to decreasing the amount of time people have to spend out of work because of illness or injury - so wellness in and out of work, ergonomics and surveillance of work processes are important.

"The health and well-being of the employee is always the most important thing," she said. "My goal is to try and increase perceptions of ability and decrease perceptions of disability. Another goal is to help an employer decrease lost productivity time and costs, and we do that helping to put the right people in the right jobs and by helping employees to get better, decrease time away from the job, increase healing and ability and become more efficient in their work patterns."

Hasek has a master's degree in Public Health and is board-certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in occupational medicine, general preventive medicine and public health. She is the assistant program director of the Palmetto Health-USC Preventive Medicine Residency Program and is an assistant professor at the USC School of Medicine in Columbia. She is also a certified medical review officer for drug testing programs and a certified DOT medical examiner.

Hasek joins manager and provider Cindy Zeigler, NP. Eric Byrd, M.D., who has been a vital part of Tuomey's industrial medicine and wellness programs for 17 years, will continue to work part time in the clinic.

HealthWorks also includes the placement of registered nurses in two of Sumter's largest industries, providing 24/7 coverage at Continental Tire the Americas and screening specialists, EMTs and an RN at BD on Monday-Friday.

For more information about how your business can benefit from a workforce health and wellness program, call HealthWorks at (803) 774-8842.