Graphic created by Dylan Collison
Healthcare workers are vital to treating those inflicted with the coronavirus. They are fighting on the frontlines to flatten the curve and are risking their health and their family’s health every day to help those in need.
Changes to healthcare workers’ routines
Wright State Physicians has had to restructure their entire clinic due to the coronavirus. Some employees now work from home while others still work in person at the clinic. A coronavirus task force has been created to tackle the pandemic.
Normally, Dr. Jennifer Lee, a family medicine physician who works for Wright State Physicians and the Boonshoft School of Medicine, would be seeing her own patients as a primary care provider. She has now been assigned new roles such as being a respiratory care physician, according to Lee.
“I have had to be flexible with a changing schedule and realizing that from week to week things may change, especially with all of the unknowns. For example, not knowing how much of a surge of patients we might get and adjusting to sometimes working at home. That’s been different. We all had to learn how to see patients virtually,” said Lee.
Some healthcare workers have been asked to take on new tasks during this time.
Donna Cunningham, nurse practitioner at Fairfield Medical Center, normally teaches tobacco cessation classes but has moved to working in urgent care and employee health. She has had to cross-train to adapt to new tasks.
“It’s been hard. I love the job I was doing with the tobacco cessation, that’s really where my passion is. My program was new and I was just getting it built up so it’s a little disheartening to me that I’ve kind of been interrupted in growing that and that I’m being pulled to another area. Which I’m more than willing to do because I want to help out in any way I can, but it is definitely out of my comfort zone and where I wanted to be,” said Cunningham.
For Heather Robinett, phlebotomist at Adena Health Systems, most appointments occur via telephone call or video call, but not all patients can be examined and cared for through telehealth and still need to be seen in person.
According to Robinett, she has also started drawing patient’s blood from their cars to decrease potential infection for healthcare workers and patients.
Joyce Krech, who works at Adena Health Systems, has been working from home as she has an autoimmune disease. This hasn’t stopped her from working to help her patients in any way that she can; she has been using telehealth to meet with her patients virtually.
“I do appreciate the opportunity to continue to care for their needs," said Krech. "I was a nurse in the emergency room and paramedic for many years and have been on the front line for flues, illnesses, and tragedies but this pandemic is something that I have never seen before."
Safety for healthcare workers
“I feel like our COVID-19 task force has been a great group of people that includes administrators and basically our leadership at Wright State Physicians. They’ve all come together to create a plan and facilitate communication between all the providers and the departments, which I think has been key for keeping everybody safe and aware,” said Lee. “They’ve been up to date on what Dr. Amy Acton and the governor has been briefing everybody on. Our leadership has been paying attention and following those guidelines, so I think we’ve been successful in that.”
The Ohio Department of Health has been working hard to release updated information and safety guidelines. Many places of employment are following these guidelines and going even further to protect their employees and patrons, according to Robinett.
“I definitely feel that my employer has done a good job. We are fortunate in our area that we have not seen a surge in the COVID-19 cases, so we have all the personal protection equipment that is necessary to do our jobs. We are working to conserve it, so we don’t run out in the future,” said Cunningham. “I have been very impressed with our state leadership with Governor DeWine and the Ohio Department of Health director Amy Acton. I feel that the steps that they have taken has been what has led to us not seeing the surge in COVID-19 cases.”
Robinett does not feel that healthcare workers are being compensated for their work and with patient volume down, paychecks are also down.
Adena is taking a huge loss and has furloughed roughly 500 people, according to Robinett.
“I don’t feel this is the health systems fault. I would not want to be a CEO of a healthcare facility right and make these difficult decisions. However, people at grocery stores are getting hazard pay, as they should. They are still out working and being around the public, getting people essential items. I just feel that healthcare workers should also get that. They are the ones bedside making these difficult decisions,” said Robinett. “I think the government should step in and help. I think the government should put something together to help healthcare personnel that are putting their lives on the line.”
According to Robinett, Ohio has done a great job stopping the spread early on, and because of that, the numbers of cases have been lower than expected.
The experience at the frontline
“Working from home is a new challenge and I think for a physician we have to make sure that we are in a safe and confidential place when we’re talking to our patients. Still, life goes on around you, you know,” said Lee. “For me, I have a small child, so I try to stay in a place that she’s not going to interfere with my work. So sometimes that’s a challenge because you don’t have as clear of a separation between work and homelife.”
There is a lot of anxiety in the community and part of the job of a physician is to answer questions and try to alleviate anxiety in patients.
Not only do physicians need to do their usual work but they’re also working to stay up to date on new information to be a resource to patients, according to Lee.
“I’ve been covering in the urgent care and employee health and it is definitely different than what I have been doing. I have never worked urgent care during my career as a nurse practitioner so there’s a lot of new things that I’m seeing. I haven’t done suturing since I was in school so I’m refreshing my skills on that, among other things,” said Cunningham.
The volume of patients being seen in the outpatient setting has decreased by a staggering amount because many people are following the stay at home recommendation and observing social distancing, according to Cunningham.
“There is the overriding concern that even when you’re going in to see someone that is not presenting symptoms and they could be an asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19. Usually I go in and introduce myself and put my hand out to shake but now I’m introducing myself from across the room. It’s been very different,” said Cunningham. “It’s also hard knowing that every time you go out and interact with somebody that you could be exposing yourself to this virus and taking it home to your family or in my case my father who is elderly and has health issues. I worry about him being exposed so I’ve really been limiting my contact with him which is very hard.”
There are so many unknowns during this time. No one is sure what will happen when and if the surge will hit certain areas, if there will be a second wave, what will happen if things get worse and when this will all improve. The uncertainty is the hard part, according to Robinett.
“It has moments of being difficult. It’s scary when you see things on the news or hear the providers talk about what all could happen. Some people in my office are very scared though,” said Robinett. “I couldn’t imagine living in New York right now or working in the healthcare field there. If I worked at the hospital it would probably be more difficult and scarier.”
Krech has been using telehealth to treat her patients but it’s been hard not being able to evaluate their state of being in person. She has been touching base and reaching out to ensure that patients have their medications ordered to offer comfort and support to her patients.
“I am a people person so it is hard not being able to hug and see my family and friends,” said Krech.
Final advice and thoughts
“I think that COVID-19 has been a challenge for healthcare providers in all fields for different reasons. I think that in this time, it’s important for us to realize that our communication, our teamwork and our resilience is so important, maybe even more important than it ever has been,” said Lee. “Because we have to try to get the right information out there and be a support and a light for our community and our patients. This highlights, as a physician, our role in a public health crisis. I think now more than ever we need to rise to that challenge.”
Robinett is happy to still be working and making a difference. She is trying to be a calming voice and presence for her family, friends and patients. She believes that by taking the appropriate actions and staying positive, we can get through this pandemic.
“This is an unusual time for all of us. I think we all just need to be patient with each other, to give grace to each other and realize that we’re all trying our best. I’m concerned that so many people may look at the numbers and since they are much lower than what the models have projected, they may think that everything was an overreaction but, in my opinion, if we hadn’t taken the steps that we had, our healthcare system would have been dramatically overrun,” said Cunningham. “I’m always concerned that there’s going to be a push to go back to normal to quickly and that we will see that surge in cases so just continue to follow the physical distancing guidelines and be patient with everyone.”
