Staffing a pandemic
Feb 11, 2021
Sean Collins
Call them Unsung Heroes, call them Essential Workers, today we talk with some of the people whose mission-critical work keeps our hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health care open during a pandemic.
Episode Notes
Last spring, Cylix Shane and some other engineers, using off-the-shelf parts, built a prototype emergency ventilator that could be readily-deployed during the pandemic. “We have some rural hospitals that wouldn’t have access to ventilators if they had a surge in patients, so we wanted to be able to allow them to configure one rapidly using parts they could get locally.” Total cost: about $250.
WATCH VENTILATOR VIDEO
Cylix Shane
Design & Construction Manager
Providence St. Joseph Health
Spokane, Wash.
Heather Martin leads a team of 14 medical librarians who support the work of Providence caregivers in seven states. She says that 75% of her work this past year has been staying on top of research focused on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the treatment of COVID-19. On average, she sees around 1,200 to 1,500 peer-reviewer articles each week, which she prioritizes and passes on to Providence clinicians. “They can do their own research and find evidence, but I’d much rather my doctor was spending time reading the article rather than spending time in a database when they have librarians to do that.”
Heather Martin
Director
System Library Services
Providence
Astoria, Ore.
Donell Grayer is sous chef at Providence Marionwood, a skilled nursing