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Torrance Memorial relied on its entire nursing staff to treat patients and combat the pandemic. Everyone stepped up in a major way.
RISING TO THE
CHALLENGE Torrance Memorial nurses keep patients and themselves safe during the pandemic. Written by John Ferrari | Photographed by Monica Venegas
24 | Pulse Magazine Spring 2022
rom supplies in the warehouse to procedures in the ER, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Torrance Memorial, everything had to change. No one knows that better than the frontline nurses who provide care for patients throughout the hospital and have continued to do so—safely— throughout the pandemic. Even before the pandemic reached the West Coast, Torrance Memorial’s nursing staff was preparing for it. “We were very much watching what was going on in the East Coast,” recalls Mary Wright, Torrance Memorial’s chief nursing officer and senior vice president of patient services. “We had a lot of planning to do.” That planning had to encompass providing care not only for Torrance Memorial patients, but also for the hospital’s own nursing staff. “We developed safe ways to check in patients, and then we also had to think about waiting and treatment areas and transporting patients,” says vice president of nursing services Shanna Hall. “Information was changing fast in the beginning. We were getting information from different sources—some of it contradictory.” Torrance Memorial made the decision to rely on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control, but having a single, trusted source of information was only the first step. The info also had to spread throughout the hospital. “Behind the scenes, clinicians were creating protocols based on evidence coming in,” Hall says. “We educated staff on all the protocols. Infectious disease nurses went to each department to educate. There were changes almost weekly, so our educators were busy! That lasted for about the first four months, after which it stabilized.” Torrance Memorial needed its entire nursing staff to treat COVID-19 patients and combat the pandemic. “Even when elective surgery was turned off,
