PIONEERING CARING FOR THE FIRST POSITIVE PATIENTS Case managers for the first COVID patients pioneered new protocols while struggling with anguish related to the crisis. As inpatient teams cared for patients requiring hospitalization for their symptoms related to COVID-19, Excela Health assigned a team of nurses from the Clinical Informatics department to reach out on a daily basis to those who received a positive test result and were convalescing at home. The goal was to assess current symptoms, provide guidance for managing those symptoms, education for them and their families with regard to quarantine, isolation, contact tracing, and testing as well as what symptoms to report that might indicate a need to present to the hospital for expanded treatment. “No one really knew anything about the disease back then.” Kennette Grohal, MSN, RN-BC, Clinical Informatics Coordinator, remembered. “The patients didn’t know what to expect and neither did we.” Kennette shared that while those early days were filled with a myriad of unanswered questions and a fair amount of uneasiness, as time went on patterns began to emerge, such as the frequent loss of taste and smell. She reiterated that they spent a lot of time reaching out to individuals’ PCPs as well as to clinicians in various specialty departments within the health system for advice and collaboration as everyone collectively learned more about the virus and how best to treat the associated symptoms. Sally Backus, MSN, RN-BC, Clinical Informatics Coordinator, recalled one particular gentleman that she followed. She relayed the anguish that she and her team experienced in determining when to make the decision to recommend an evaluation in the Emergency Department. Sally encouraged this particular man to proceed to the hospital and she continued daily calls with his wife throughout his inpatient stay to provide 14
updates on his condition as visitation was not permitted at that time. “This guy was so sick and the prognosis was not good at all”, Sally recalled. She shared that he hovered between life and death for a long period of time. “All I could think about was if I had told him to go in one day sooner, would it have made a difference?” Sally shared that she developed a bond with this man’s wife during those dark days. “I knew all about them and their family. Their daughter worked in the system and was expecting a baby.” Sally shared that she and her teammates lost a lot of sleep over patients such as this man, agonizing as to whether there was anything they could have done differently to improve outcomes during a time when the world had more questions than answers. After being on a ventilator for five weeks, this gentleman began to show improvement and after being in the hospital for seven weeks, he was reunited with his wife and discharged to home as Excela staff members cheered them on and celebrated his remarkable recovery.
This patient’s wife expressed her heartfelt appreciation for the care that Excela staff delivered to her husband as well as the support she received by launching a GoFundMe page with funds directed to the Westmoreland/Frick Foundation’s Pandemic Fund. The initiative raised more than $11,000.