Becker's Hospital Review

41 WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP Leadership advice from 9 women across Yale New Haven Health By Kelly Gooch F emale leaders have been crucial to Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health's COVID-19 pandemic response. Across the organiza- tion, they have led incident command centers and are planning recovery operations. Here, nine female leaders with Yale New Haven Health and its en- tities share with Becker's Hospital Review their advice for navigating through the pandemic. Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity. April Alfano, BSN, RN, manager of disaster preparedness and re- sponse for Yale New Haven Health: Have one source of truth. One voice. Clear lines of communication across the organization are crit- ical in a disaster. As a leader in disaster preparedness and response, a significant area of focus for me was in assuring that there was one source of truth for the organization. is required working with our senior leaders through the Hospital Incident Command System and ensuring key information and decisions from the emergency opera- tions center were carefully cascaded to the entire organization. We created an email template that was easy to follow and predictable. We identified themes and any new updates were sent in red so employ- ees could immediately identify new information. We also included electronic links to supporting documents as well as attachments. e themed categories were operations, planning and logistics. Personal protective equipment fell under logistics. at was always an area of concern. Most employees had the same concerns and questions. We held one venue daily for leaders to submit updates. We sent out infor- mation daily before the close of business, Monday through Friday. We have multiple service lines in our organization, and we discouraged specialty areas in the hospital from sending out their own informa- tion. is cut down on confusion and duplication of efforts between service lines. Employees began to look at the emails from the emer- gency operations center as their source of truth for the pandemic. Strategically, our organization began to utilize hospital incident com- mand for all events, large or small, for the last two years. Utilizing this system frequently was a strength for our team. is comfort in the Hospital Incident Command System structure made communication seamless during a time filled with uncertainty and challenges. Maribeth Cabie, PharmD, director of clinical redesign for Yale New Haven Health: Aer establishing the Yale New Haven Health System COVID-19 Call Center that is hitting a milestone of 100,000 calls from the community since opening in early March, one piece of advice would be to consistently hear the voice of the patient/commu- nity. It has been critical that we understand the current needs, provide immediate medical expertise, adapt nimbly to new concerns, and an- ticipate future opportunities as the pandemic has progressed. Having this pulse on the situation has allowed us to be a resource for the com- munity, provide the most current education, offer immediate clinical assessments, order testing over the phone/video visit, and keep the volume of patients utilizing the emergency departments for COVID assistance minimized to emergencies. Kerin Da Cruz, MSN, RN, chief nursing officer of L+M Healthcare (New London, Conn): Never let a crisis go to waste. roughout this pandemic we have seen our teams do extraordinary things. ey have been innovative, collaborative and courageous on a daily basis. e speed in which they have come together to fight a common enemy is unprecedented. We cannot control the pandemic, but we can control our response. And the response has been swi, heroic and nothing short of miraculous. We didn't have a best practice play book to follow, so we created it. Out of a crisis comes a new way of doing things that make us all better for having been a part of it. ere is tremendous loss and despite that loss there is an incredible hope for the future. It is a future in which there is hope, remembrance, gratitude, and inspiration because throughout the chaos, we have come together in a way that was not possible before. Anne Diamond, president and CEO of Bridgeport (Conn.) Hospi- tal: Be creative in finding multiple channels for communication. Show transparency, embrace technology for town halls and real time chats, round with staff and it's OK to show emotion. As women we oen work very hard to not show emotions but when you have an event of this magnitude it is important to show our vulnerable side, it gives permission to our staff to get in touch with their emotions so they can manage them in a healthy way. My second piece of advice [is to] get your leaders into the right inci- dent command roles. e right leaders for planning and managing during the event are not always the same leaders for recovery and transformation. Denise Fiore, COO of L+M Healthcare: Lead with humility and agility and balance that with honest, consistent and adaptive communication. Early in the pandemic there were unknowns and there was the need to ensure our teams were cared for, whether they were front line caring for our patients or not. e well-being of our associates and our patients was paramount. Our associates needed to see us not only visible in the work environment, but also demonstrating that we were honest, timely and consistent in our communication as we navigated the pandemic. At times admitting that we did not have all the answers but that we were supported by each other as executives and across the health system in making decisions to ensure that our teams of people were kept safe, cared for and that we were addressing matters as soon as they arose strengthened trust amongst everyone. is fostered greater pride and increased will "to be in this pandemic" taking care of our patients. Being adaptive in how we communicate was key as well. Consistent communication allowed us to be proactive with messaging informa- tion and also adaptive to tailor the message and communicate the ev- er-changing reality. It has been an honor to lead a great team through the incident command component of the pandemic and to also then be able to move easily from a command perspective to transforming operations for the future. Marianne Hatfield, DNP, RN, vice president of nursing and patient care services for Yale New Haven Children's Hospital and Yale New Haven Hospital Women's Services: As is oen the case in a lead- ership position, you will find yourself being asked to take on more responsibility — particularly in a time of crisis. I found myself run- ning first our flagship hospital's "labor pool" and then within days of that, the health system's "nursing labor pool." We scrambled to put together a team that could quickly inventory all of the nurses with acute care experience who were no longer working in direct care

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