Redesigning to meet the (testing) needs of our patients

In usual times, our adult Emergency Department sees 160 patients on a busy day. Over the last week, the ED has been seeing more than 260 patients per day. This dramatic increase is due to the number of people seeking testing for COVID-19 since the Omicron variant has come to Maryland. The increase has overwhelmed both our adult and pediatric emergency department staff. 

When people are significantly ill with a respiratory pathogen such that they are having difficulty breathing, it is very important for us to identify the cause of the illness, so we can deliver evidence-based therapy. It is therefore critical to assure that we have adequate supplies to test patients who may need to be admitted to the hospital. On the other hand, for people who have no symptoms or mild symptoms, knowing the cause is not helpful since we will recommend rest, drinking adequate fluids, and taking over-the-counter medications for pain relief no matter what virus is to blame. I accept that there are other reasons why people seek testing. Many schools are requiring testing for attendance if the student has had an exposure or has any symptoms associated with COVID-19, for example. Others may have a frail elder or someone with chronic illness in their homes and they do not want to expose them to COVID-19. Today, these are not valid reasons to use the Emergency Department. We must leave the staff free to treat those who are sick.  

To help lessen the strain on our ED staff, we are opening three testing sites. Two of them are on the GBMC campus. The first will be in the trailer outside the ED. Here, we will accommodate those who come to the ED seeking testing and, after a screening exam, are judged to not be very sick.   

Beginning Monday, Jan. 3, testing will also be available by appointment on the first floor of the William E. Kahlert Physicians Pavilion North. For more information on these two testing sites please visit www.gbmc.org  

If you’re a GBMC HealthPartners primary care patient, you can schedule an appointment for a COVID test at our Padonia Plus location by logging on to your MyChart account. 

If you have concerns about your health and are not having difficulty breathing or some other true emergency, please contact your primary care provider. To keep yourself and others safe, please act as if everyone you meet is infected with COVID-19. Wear your mask, stay physically distant and wash your hands. Obviously, if you have not been vaccinated or had your booster, please take care of this as soon as possible. You are putting yourself and others at risk if you are not fully vaccinated.

As 2021 ends, I would like to again offer my heartfelt thanks to our doctors, nurses, other clinicians and support staff, for their hard work on the frontlines as the battle against COVID-19 continues. Thank you all for your courage, strength, generosity, and perseverance. 

Additionally, I want to thank our community and patients for trusting us with their medical care in 2021. It is an honor to serve you. 

We should reflect on all the GBMC HealthCare System’s accomplishments in 2021. 

I will never forget the groundbreaking for The Promise Project in September. It has been exciting to see the demolition and site preparation that has happened so far. Construction will continue through 2022 with the grand opening scheduled for late summer of 2023. The Promise Project will create physical space that will make it easier for our staff to get the job done. 

Some of our other noteworthy accomplishments in 2021 included:
--We opened the new Gilchrist Center Baltimore at Stadium Place. This new facility brings state-of-the-art end-of-life care to many in the city including Baltimore’s most marginalized people.
--We had 135 members of our medical staff across 69 specialties named "Top Docs" in Baltimore magazine.  We are honored to have more “Top Docs” than any other community health system.
--Our Nurse Residency Program received re-accreditation with distinction from the American Nurses Association. The program was accredited with distinction by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation in Practice Transition Programs.
--GBMC was recognized as a HIMSS Davies Award winner…AGAIN! This is the third time we have received this impressive recognition!
--Our Primary Stroke Center achieved the 2021 American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines® (GWTG)-Stroke: Gold Plus with Target: Stroke Elite Honor Roll and Target: Type 2 Diabetes Honor Roll. These awards recognize hospitals that meet specific quality measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients and are a testament to our Stroke Center’s commitment to reliably deliver care according to the latest scientific evidence.
--GBMC was recognized as the #4 hospital in Maryland in US News and World Report Rankings. --GBMC HealthCare was recognized as the best in several disciplines by the readers of The Baltimore Sun! The Baltimore Sun readers named GBMC HealthCare the best in the following categories: Best Hospital; Best Audiologist; Best General Practitioner.
--GBMC HealthCare had 13 nurses recognized in Baltimore magazine's annual “Excellence in Nursing” edition. 

This short list only recognizes a few of our accomplishments. What others shall we celebrate? Please share your thoughts.

We look forward to continuing our work toward our vision of being the community-based true system of care that can deliver to everyone the care that we want for our own loved ones. I will be delighted to see the pandemic fade into the sunset in 2022.  I am so grateful for everything that my GBMC teammates have done in the face of adversity. I hope that you and your families continue to stay safe and I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!

Thanks for Being a Part of the Solution…and not a Part of the Problem

The news is buzzing about the increase in COVID-19 cases. This is happening for several reasons. The omicron variant is much easier to transmit from person to person than previous variants. The weather has turned cold, and people have moved indoors where they are more likely to pass the virus from one person to another. We can’t directly affect the creation of new variants or the weather, but we can do something about the third reason why cases are climbing…the number of people who have not been vaccinated. 

Two people died at GBMC earlier this week from COVID-19 and they had not been vaccinated. As I write this blog, we have 10 patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with COVID-19, and none of them have been vaccinated. Of the other 28 people sick enough to be in a hospital bed, only five have been vaccinated. We know that vaccination is the single best strategy to prevent death and serious illness from COVID-19, but we still have too many people who have not been vaccinated. Not only are they putting themselves at risk, but they are putting everyone at risk and they are creating bottlenecks in the healthcare system that are hurting their friends and neighbors, while they are also exhausting nurses and physicians. It is time for the unvaccinated, without a valid medical exemption, to realize that they are part of the problem.  

On Monday, I joined members of county government and leaders from other local hospitals to raise the alarm about the high number of new COVID-19 cases, and how our frontline healthcare workers are facing difficult conditions yet again in the latest wave no one wished they would see. We were united in asking people to get vaccinated so that we are able to meet the healthcare needs of the community. When hospitals are full of COVID-19 patients, people with other diseases run the real risk of bad outcomes while waiting for care.  

In addition to getting vaccinated, it is important for people to get their preventive medical care to keep from getting sick. Everyone should have a primary care provider. They should contact their primary care provider for help when they are sick and only go to the Emergency Department when they truly have an emergency. 

If you know someone in our region who needs a primary care provider, please ask them to contact GBMC Health Partners.

Protect yourself and your loved ones against COVID-19 and the flu through vaccination, wearing a mask, keeping social distancing and washing your hands. These actions will help our healthcare system to preserve valuable resources to provide care for those who need it. Remember we are all in this together!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
I want to extend best wishes for a safe, healthy, and happy holiday season for those celebrating Christmas or Kwanzaa.  Enjoy your time with family members and think about the things that are important in your lives. For those staff members working during the holidays, a special “thank you” for serving others. 

Our People Are Our Greatest Asset

We talk a lot about designing systems to make it easier for our people to get their work done. We realize, however, that it is the people themselves who move us forward. As the population ages, there is an ever-greater demand for healthcare workers. The pandemic has made the situation worse as some have left the field. So, it is more important than ever that we keep our people and recruit others who embrace our mission and vision. 

I and the rest of the Senior Team have worked with Anna Maria Palmer, our Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, and Meredith Barclay, Director of Talent Acquisition, to develop a new initiative that benefits our current employees and helps to attract staff. For a limited time, staff members who refer a colleague who is ultimately employed by GBMC HealthCare, may receive a referral bonus. We’ve selected several hard-to-fill positions to include in this bonus program, including nurses, advanced practitioners, security guards, pharmacy technicians and pharmacists. There are terms, conditions and exclusions, so please click here for more details. Gilchrist has implemented a separate employee referral bonus program.

Our people know what we look for in a good colleague: strong clinical skills, accepting and living our greater values, and a desire to help us achieve our vision.  So please spread the word and help us find great teammates. 

A Physician Titans of Care Retires
Earlier this week, we celebrated the career of one of our most respected and revered Physician Titans of Care; Francis “Bing” Grumbine, MD.

Over the last 39 years, Dr. Grumbine has been known as a superb and compassionate physician and researcher. Beloved by his patients and his colleagues, Bing has had a profound impact on his field, and during his tenure, the status of our gynecology department has grown tremendously. Dr. Grumbine helped launch the careers of some of the region’s best GYN oncologists. He oversaw clinical research protocols in gynecologic oncology and served on countless committees, working tirelessly to assure outstanding clinical outcomes. 

Dr. Grumbine witnessed the evolution in the diagnosis and treatment of gynecologic cancers and helped introduce new laparoscopic techniques in the operating room, including laparoscopic hysterectomy and staging procedures in endometrial cancer patients. He made GBMC the first hospital in the region to perform laparoscopic staging to reduce hospital stays and morbidity and was also instrumental in bringing robotic surgery to the field, leading GBMC to become the first community hospital to perform a radical hysterectomy utilizing robotic surgery.

GBMC has been fortunate to have Dr. Grumbine as such a dedicated physician and colleague. Please join me in thanking Dr Grumbine for all that he has done for GBMC, our staff, and for the exceptional care he provided to patients for more than three decades.

One Year After the Cyber Attack: Stronger and Better Prepared

One year ago, this week, the GBMC HealthCare System was attacked by cyber criminals, and we found ourselves without our telephones and all our computer programs. Our people rose to the occasion – in the middle of the pandemic – and got the job done, serving those who needed us.

We learned a lot from the attack and we have made significant improvements to our technology because of the learning. We built a new network with state-of-the art protection and an external company now monitors our systems 24 hours a day. Attackers are frequently trying to get into our systems. This is not a rare event, and it is truly unfortunate that we must constantly keep our guard up against cybercriminals. 

In another reminder that these types of attacks are on-going: Earlier this week, we learned of a network security incident involving the Maryland Department of Health (MDH).  We can sympathize with our colleagues at MDH and we stand with them as they investigate what happened and work to get back to normal operations. 

To this day, I am grateful for the tenacity, dedication, and tireless work of our staff members who helped us get through the huge challenges of the pandemic and the cyberattack simultaneously. Many team members stepped into new roles, like runners and safety nurses. Our leaders staffed the command center 24 hours a day implemented downtime procedures while redesigning care on the fly. Watching our nurses and clinicians, with the help of our support staff and IT, go above and beyond their normal duties and deliver the care that we want for our own loved ones to every patient, every time was inspirational. The level of dedication and commitment to our patients was truly moving, and I will always be appreciative of the support from our patients, their families and our community.

Cyberattacks on hospitals and health systems will continue until the United States and its allies have a cohesive plan to combat cyber threats with the same resourcefulness they use to address other threats from abroad.

Most of the repairs on our systems have been completed, but there is still work to do. Dave Hynson, GBMC’s Chief Information Officer, and his team have been doing a fabulous job in making sure that our network is meeting the challenge in protecting the privacy and security of information that our patients have entrusted to us.

Again, I would like to thank our nurses, physicians, advanced practitioners, other clinicians, IT professionals, and support staff for everything you have done. 

Art of Nursing Nominations…
Nursing is often referred to as the art of science, knowledge, and caring. At GBMC HealthCare, we celebrate the Art of Nursing and each of its components through our Nursing Recognition Program.

The pandemic has really shined a spotlight on the selfless efforts of the many talented nurses throughout the GBMC HealthCare System, and I want to thank them for their dedication to serving others. Their expertise, hard work, and caring drives us closer to our vision every day. Our nurses make a huge difference!

Nursing staff throughout the GBMC HealthCare system, whether serving in the hospital, in our ambulatory practices, or with Gilchrist, are encouraged to apply or nominate a colleague for one of our Art of Nursing recognitions by visiting here. Non-nursing staff members are also encouraged to submit nominations to recognize a nursing colleague. New this year is an 8th category - the Nightingale Award - as an additional opportunity to recognize a teammate. 

Please submit your nominations as soon as possible! The deadline for submissions is Friday, January 14. Let’s show our nurses, who work so hard every day to make sure others receive the care they need, our appreciation. Thank you and stay tuned for more information on our 2022 Art of Nursing event.

In case you hadn’t noticed…

This week I want to provide you with another update about campus changes as we continue with The Promise Project. 

I am glad to report that as of today, we are on schedule with the construction of the three-story inpatient addition, parking garage, and the Sandra R. Berman Pavilion. 

As many of you have “heard,” we are completing the demolition phase of the project—the loudest and most disruptive. I want to thank all my colleagues who have tried to make the disruptions less bothersome by listening to the concerns of patients, families, and staff. We could not get through this phase so smoothly without the staff leaning in and informing our patients of what is taking place.

With regards to the Three-Story Inpatient Facility, here are some major activities that have taken place:

50 percent complete:
Underground utility lines at Charles Street and our loop road 

90 percent complete:
Overhang demolition by the old main entrance and along the 4 tower

Complete for construction staging:
Rose Lot

Completed:
Demolition of the Library

In the next couple of months, among the many major activities you will notice around campus include the demolition of the former Medical Imaging Building (MIB) to start the Sandra R. Berman Pavilion and garage site work. I am happy to report that our renderings have been approved and the schematic design has started with the demolition occurring later this month. 

To get this done, we will need to continue to make changes to patient and staff flow throughout our campus. For more information on our progress, please visit here. 

Why are we there?
Some of you may remember that our advanced primary care practice in Baltimore City has been serving men dealing with substance abuse who are residents at the Helping Up Mission (HUM). We partnered with HUM because there is a great need for primary care services in the Jonestown community and HUM needed a medical practice to deliver accountable primary care to their residents.  Most of the men who come to HUM have not had adequate healthcare for many years and many have lived on the streets for long periods of time. Continuity in their care was pretty much non-existent. 

In the video below, three HUM graduates, in their own words, tell us how big a role our care plays in their lives.  I want to thank Anthony Johnson, Joel Lessard, and Charles Wheeler for sharing their personal stories and the physicians, nurses, and staff at our primary care practice in Jonestown and at our Eye Center at Joppa Road for helping us to be a true system that can deliver to every patient, every time, the care we want for our own loved ones.

Happy Hanukkah!!!
Hanukkah is a festive eight-day celebration for those of the Jewish faith that kicked off this past Sunday evening. Also called the Festival of Lights, this holiday brings light, joy, and warmth to friends, families, and communities.

At the center of the celebration is the nightly menorah lighting. The menorah holds nine flames, one of which is the shamash (“attendant”), which is the center candle used to light the other eight candles. On the first night, just one flame is lit. On the second night, an additional flame is lit. By the eighth night of Chanukah, all eight lights plus the shamash candle are kindled. As part of the holiday, it is customary to play with a dreidel (a four-sided spinning top). The game is usually played for a pot of coins, nuts, or other tokens, which are won or lost based on which letter the dreidel lands when it is spun.

I would like to wish everyone celebrating a very Happy Hanukkah!