Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

26 PATIENT & CAREGIVER EXPERIENCE How Providence will bring remote employees back to the office By Kelly Gooch A s COVID-19 spread across the U.S. in 2020, hospitals and health systems adjusted their workforce. Many administrative workers who could work from home were instructed to do so, and they have remained remote. Providence, a 51-hospital health system based in Renton, Wash., is no exception. Nearly all of the organization's administrative work- force of 18,000 are working from home full time and will continue to, at least part time, when the pandemic is over, Greg Till, chief people officer, told Becker's during an interview. Providence has finalized a post-COVID-19 virtual work strategy for administrative employees to modernize how work will be performed when the public health crisis ends. "What we will be doing in the future is giving employees the ability to have a more flexible, collaborative, engaging work experience," Mr. Till said. "A lot of that is accelerating plans we've been working on for the last several years, as we've projected what the future will look like." July 1 will be the earliest date that remote administrative employees can return to facilities and offices, unless they can't work produc- tively from home, Mr. Till said. A few employees will work on site daily, and a few will work from home daily, but most of Providence's administrative workforce will work any- where from two to four days a week from home, Mr. Till said. Where an employee works day to day will be based on the individual and their role, he said. "Based on what we've seen [so far during the pandemic], we believe it's going to be something that improves our employees' experience [and] their productivity," Mr. Till said. "One indicator that gives us confidence in this approach is our recent employee engagement survey, showing a seven-point improvement for those who have been able to work remotely." Providence will replace personal offices and cubicles with flexible, open and shared hotel (on-demand) work and collaboration spaces to support the hybrid model, and it will make resources available to support a productive virtual work experience, the health system said. ese resources include virtual ergonomic assessments, training on virtual etiquette and maintaining connection to the mission and each other, faster technology equipment delivery, core leader workshops and mental health support. Mr. Till recommended that other health systems considering virtual work guidelines collaborate with employees to ensure their needs are matched with those of the organization. At the beginning of the pandemic, Providence hosted discussions via surveys, focus groups and leadership sessions to learn more about workers' experiences and what they ideally wanted in a work space during and aer the pandemic, he said. All of that was used in devel- oping the post-COVID-19 virtual work strategy. n 'Once again, we're not prepared': New York hospital nurses say lack of staff, resources maches spring surge By Mackenzie Bean M any nurses are expressing concern about condi- tions in New York hospitals amid a major surge in COVID-19 patients, The New York Times reported Dec. 17. Despite hospitals' best efforts to prepare for this fall's virus surge, many facilities still are struggling with low supplies of personal protective equipment and staff shortages, which could put patients at risk, nurses told the Times. "We're worse off in some ways than we were in the beginning," said Shalon Matthews, an RN who works in the emergency room at Montefiore New Rochelle (N.Y.) Hospital. "We need staff, we need help, we need resourc- es. I'm fearful for my patients, and I'm fearful that the same thing that happened back in March, it's going to happen again — and once again, we're not prepared." Many nurses at the hospital report higher patient loads than in the spring. Some have taken on at least four patients in the intensive care unit, or seven at a time in the emergency room, according to Kathy Santoiemma, RN, a union leader and longtime nurse at Montefiore New Rochelle. Meanwhile, nurses at Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center are voicing concerns about PPE and safety protocols at the hospital, which had a COVID-19 outbreak in an oncology unit that infected at least eight patients and 14 employ- ees in late 2020, according to the New York State Nurses Association. Albany Medical Center spokesperson Matt Markham told the Times that the hospital has more than a 90-day supply of PPE and that staff members are not required to reuse a mask if they feel uncomfortable using it. n

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