WDH 2020-2021 Nursing Report - Flipbook - Page 6
Serving Our Community
Through a COVID Hotline
of information included everything from quarantine
and isolation guidelines, how to place Covid orders in the
system, current WDH Covid locations and hours, nursing
workflows, and important phone numbers.
Katharine Weeks, BSN, RN
As Covid cases in the state continued to climb, the
hotline needed to quickly ramp up in size- eventually
evolving to 18 nurses fielding almost 800 calls per week.
Nurses came to the hotline from all different areas across
our organization- PCP offices, specialty offices, same
day surgery, endoscopy, and operative departments that
were seeing a decrease in volume due to deferred care
or reduction in volume out of necessary precaution. The
team worked together to learn the new covid templates
and systems, workflows, and guidelines to ensure high
quality, accurate, and timely care was given to every
caller. Every call posed a new situation to the team that
required critical thinking skills and problem solving. It
was amazing and inspiring to see nurses from so many
different departments, backgrounds, and skill sets work
together as if they had been a team for years, providing
the five-star care we strive for every day.
Director of Clinical Operations,
Wentworth Health Partners
As news broke about the first Covid case in New
Hampshire in March 2020, our patients began calling in
to the hospital system with questions, fears, and anxiety.
Quickly, it was identified that the Wentworth-Douglass
system needed to assist our patients with providing
answers, reassurance, and care.
Beginning as two nurses in a call center, a dedicated
phone line was opened to field all questions and concerns
from our Wentworth-Douglass Hospital system and
Wentworth Health Partners practices. The hotline
opened to the community as we saw the need for
information and assistance increase. The nurses were
kept informed of changes to CDC Covid protocols, to
ensure we were providing our patients consistent,
up to date information through use of a “All Things
Covid” Operating Procedure. This ever-changing packet
WDH Occupational
Health Line
The volume of calls from WDH employees with
questions about symptoms, testing, and returning
to work led to the opening of an Occupational
Health Line with just 24 hours notice. WDH Nurses
from Surgical Services redeployed to the call center
and provided education, return to work guidelines,
and reassurance to their colleagues.
Judy Gordon (left) and Katharine Glynn (right)
were among the many nurses redeployed from
their primary nursing positions to work at the WDH
Occupational Health Line.
6
Wentworth-Douglass Hospital