Page 14 - White Plains Hospital Annual Report 2020-2021

365 DAYS AND COUNTING
Since day one, the 4F unit has been taking care of COVID patients.
Like a scene from a TV medical drama playing out over and over again, the team on 4F, a step-down unit at the Hospital, has been on high alert since the very first coronavirus patient arrived at White Plains Hospital on March 9, 2020. The unit, a multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, nurse technicians, respiratory therapists, social workers, and other clinicians, has been exclusively treating COVID-19 patients for more than a year.
“4F was chosen as the COVID unit because we knew we had all levels of care covered,” says Jennifer Bello, Senior Director of Nursing for Critical Care. “If patients needed standard medical care as well as if they progressed and needed a higher level of care—we had that all on the same unit.”
The transition took an all-hands-on-deck approach. To support the clinicians caring for patients on 4F, members of the Hospital’s engineering, environmental services, facilities, project management, and logistics teams worked collaboratively to enact remarkable and rapid changes. Together, they repurposed and redesigned
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spaces, brought on additional intensive-care capacity, constructed negative-pressure environments for increased patient safety, and ensured convenient storage for PPE and other crucial supplies.
“We built an additional supply chain inventory space for them inside that hot zone,” says Ky Pringle, Director of Supply Chain & Logistics. “We added covered carts with a compliment of supplies (PPE and medical supplies) that would prevent the clinical team from exiting the hot zone to obtain what was necessary to care for patients. Doing this helped to minimize the possibility of cross contamination.”
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WHITE PLAINS HOSPITAL
Adjustments were also made to the workflows of support staff including food-service workers and members of the housekeeping staff to ensure maximum patient safety and clinical effectiveness. No detail was overlooked.
“All teams—nursing management, senior manage- ment, EVS—everyone worked together to bring 4F to where it needed to be,” says James Ingersoll, Director of Engineering.