Nursing is a Great Career

Nurses are the backbone of any hospital. Through their expertise, dedication and hard work, they make the system work. They are patient advocates, and along with physicians, other clinicians, and support staff, they get the healing job done.

The importance of the bedside nurse has never been so obvious as during the pandemic. Our nurses have come to work every day, putting their own health on the line to serve others in great need. It is also true that some have left the bedside during the pandemic out of sheer exhaustion or due to the tension between work and family needs.

With the aging of the population, the demand for nurses will continue to grow. Applications to schools of nursing are increasing, which is a great sign. I have been reflecting on the reasons why a young person starting their career would pick nursing and I learned that one of our staff members, Lauren Kelly, was advancing professionally as an RN and was moving to work in our Emergency Department. 

So, this week I sat down and spoke with Lauren who has been part of the GBMC family since 2018. Lauren started her GBMC career in Employee Health (EH), as a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN). She used our tuition assistance program to further her career from LPN to RN, during a time of incredible employee turnover and work in EH, and while carrying and giving birth to her first child! Lauren did this to achieve her dream of becoming an RN and helping others in the Emergency Department.

To find out more about Lauren, her journey and the next step in her career at GBMC, click on the player below.  Please join me in congratulating Lauren and wishing her well as she furthers her career and also please join me in thanking everyone who works as a nurse!

Thank you to our HealthCare Heroes!

Governor Larry Hogan kicked off Healthcare Heroes Appreciation Week this past Monday and we are very thankful for his recognition of how hard the members of the healthcare team have worked during the pandemic.  

Over the last couple of months during the Omicron surge, all Maryland hospitals faced staffing challenges (and still are) amidst rising patient volumes — many of our staff were also quarantined from COVID-19 exposure, and just about every staff member worked hours beyond their regular hours.   

GBMC HealthCare is blessed with the most dedicated and highly compassionate professionals. Our family of heroes includes everyone, in every position, because we need the whole team to get the job done. Working together across all three of our work-systems to fight COVID has brought out the best in our staff…and our patients, their families, and the entire community has benefited from this.  

The unwavering commitment of our people is a continuing source of inspiration. So, it is right for the Governor to declare a week of celebration of their efforts. 

Also, throughout the pandemic and especially during this last surge, we have had extraordinary support from our community. Individuals and businesses continue to reach out to us to ask how they can help. A way that organizations, individuals, community groups, and local businesses can continue to help support our staff is by contributing to the GBMC HealthCare Workers Fund. This fund was created to provide resources to staff in need during this time of crisis. It has been used to pay for childcare, rent, meals and for celebrations at work, among other things. I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all those who have contributed to the fund.  

Also, if you would like to express your appreciation for our heroes please click here, where you can submit messages of gratitude.

Thank you, to our Healthcare Heroes, for your bravery, hard work, and compassion. 

Making the Ultimate Sacrifice

On Wednesday, a memorial service was held honoring the three Baltimore firefighters who died in the line of duty last week. Thousands of first responders from across the country gathered to pay tribute and say goodbye to their three fallen comrades.   

Baltimore fire Lt. Paul Butrim, Lt. Kelsey Sadler and Firefighter/Paramedic Kenny Lacayo were battling a fire at a vacant rowhome in southwest Baltimore when they became trapped as part of the building collapsed.   

Putting your life on the line for others is an incredible act of courage. We are in debt to those who risk their safety for us. This is a moment of sadness for the entire community. It is heartening to see the outpouring of support for the families of the fallen firefighters. The GBMC family stands united with them.  

Healthcare workers have put their safety on the line as well during the pandemic, especially before we had vaccines. We must all be thankful for the courage of first responders and all who risk their safety to serve and protect others.   

We extend our deepest sympathies to the family, friends, and colleagues of the firefighters who died in this tragic event. 

The surge is abating
The number of new cases of COVID-19 caused by the omicron variant has dropped precipitously. Let me thank all my GBMC colleagues for your fabulous work during this most recent surge. Let me also thank our Incident Command Team (ICT), led by our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Jack Flowers and Cate O’Connor-Devlin RN, BSN, Director of Emergency Preparedness, Safety, and Security. The ICT did a marvelous job of overseeing our response and in using our core competency of redesigning care to adjust to changes in the environment.  

Over the last several weeks, the ICT was key in helping us open three COVID testing centers to take the pressure off the ED. They worked with the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) and the Maryland National Guard, to open a state-run testing site on our campus.  

Give Blood…It’s Vital!!
Currently, blood banks in our state and across the nation are running low on units of blood. The impact of pandemic-associated blood drive cancellations and a host of other coronavirus-related circumstances have worsened the nationwide shortage of blood.  Blood donation is vital to our ability to care for surgical patients, those who’ve suffered traumatic injuries, and patients who need blood because of illnesses such as cancer.  At this time, all time slots are filled for our upcoming blood drive on Thursday, Feb. 10 from 5:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  in the Civiletti Conference Center. However, if you’re still interested in donating you can put your name on a wait list by contacting Cristie Nickel, our Community Relations and Events Specialist, at CNICKEL@gbmc.org  Donating blood s is easy, it doesn’t take much time, and you will literally be helping to save lives!  If you can’t donate during our upcoming blood drive, please visit here to register for an event at another location or mark your calendars for our next blood drive on Thursday, May 19 . Thank you!

Finding Your Way at GBMC

GBMC employees and volunteers have become quite accustomed to finding people who are lost on our campus. Almost every day, I find someone who needs help to get to their destination. Our campus is big, and our buildings are spread out over a large area. Before I arrived at GBMC, the decision was made to name our parking structures after flowers to make it easier for people to remember where they parked. Unfortunately, many people don’t remember their flower. 

When coming for an appointment, patients are often anxious, which makes it more likely that they will lose their way and struggle with signage and on-wall maps. Patients arrive late and sometimes actually miss their appointments, and we staff members often arrive late to a meeting because we are helping people find their way. So, we have been looking to improve wayfinding at GBMC. 

Last fall, GBMC began partnering with an industry-leading mobile application vendor, Phunware, to provide our patients with a blue-dot wayfinding solution to help them navigate to and within our main campus. The app is available for both Android and iPhones for download, free of charge, at the Google PlayStore and the Apple AppStore.

Using the app, patients and family members can get directions from their homes to the closest parking garage to their destination as well as step-by-step directions to their appointment. In addition, our GBMC app gives patients and visitors an opportunity to read GBMC news or connect to social media. Visitors can also input vital information, such as their visitor details, before entering the hospital. 

The addition of the GBMC wayfinding app is another example of our work to use technology to make it easier to access care from us. The app will connect to the patient’s medical record via the Epic MyChart portal which allows our patients to access their appointments, medical information, etc. from their phone. 

Since the launch in November, more than 500 people a month are actively using the GBMC wayfinding app. We continue to work with Phunware to add new features. Share My Location is a feature that will be available soon and will allow patients to share their location with friends/family who would then use the app-provided route to arrive at the location.

We are excited to improve wayfinding on our campus using this app. Have you tried it yet? If not, please visit here to get started.

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Thursday, we hosted our annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration, which commemorated Dr. King’s life and vision. This year’s program was shifted to a fully virtual format due to the increase in COVID-19 cases. 

As a nation, we have made progress thanks to the work of Dr. King and others, but we have a long way to go to achieve Dr. King’s dream. 

The theme for our celebration was Hope in Action: The Fierce Urgency of Now, and it featured our keynote presenter, Diane Bell-McKoy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Associated Black Charities. Her message was clear. We cannot rely on the legacy of Dr. King. Each of us must get in action to dismantle systemic racism. 

After Ms. Bell-McKoy’s, speech, we presented the Spirit of King Award, which recognizes an individual who embodies the spirit and life's work of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  through service to others. The winner of this year’s Spirit of King award was Kirsten Merges, RN, from our NICU. Please join me in congratulating Kirsten for the recognition and thanking her for her generous service in Haiti. And please join me in congratulating the other nominees for their selfless giving to others!

This year we added a new challenge, the MLK Children's Contest, which called on the creativity of the children of our employees, volunteers, and contractors to help us recognize and celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Children submitted their poems, drawings, short stories, or any original creation that helped us recognize the contributions of Dr. King. The winners were:  

First Place: Paige Lynn Morgan (employee: Tracie Schwoyer-Morgan, Palliative Medicine)
Second Place: Anna Boblooch (employee: Stephanie Boblooch, Cleft Palate Program)
Third Place:   Zion Graves (employee: Shannon Graves, Perinatal Services)

Congratulations to all who participated!

I am grateful to Lisa Walker, our Chief Diversity and Learning Officer and to my colleagues on the Diversity and Inclusion Council and to those on the planning committee for putting this event together. And thanks to all who participated in the virtual event.

You can click here to view the recording of the 2022 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration.

Working Hard to Recruit the People We Need

I have participated in new employee orientation since I arrived in 2010. My job is to welcome our new teammates and introduce them to who we are and the GBMC vision for the future. On Monday of this week, I welcomed more than 100 new employees! We all know the story of how people have left the workforce since the pandemic started. In addition, the U.S. has a significant shortage of nurses that has been made worse by the pandemic. 

We have all been under stress since the pandemic began, and our Human Resources Department has been working very hard to fill all of our vacancies. I asked Anna-Maria Palmer, our Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, to give readers of the blog an update on what we are doing to keep up with our very high turnover and vacancy rate.  

Q:  In your words, how has the current wave of the pandemic changed the GBMC workplace?
We are fortunate that GBMC’s incident command structure and our well-defined critical work systems have enabled us to take hold of the current wave of the pandemic. Our Baldrige work has paid off because we can easily adjust processes to accommodate this new pandemic wave.

A key reason we can adapt our processes to support increased patient care needs is because our workforce embraces our vision statement. Our employees are resilient and dedicated. I see this daily as employees volunteer to pick up extra shifts, so they can help departments with staff absences due to the pandemic. I also see employees who are now working in an alternative work assignment through our Alternative Labor Pool. In addition, our workforce is supporting each other by nominating peers for Peer-to-Peer recognition and Compassionate Caregiver and Art of Nursing awards. 

Q: What's behind the current shortage, and do you have any incentives or initiatives to shore up staffing levels?
As a nation, we are experiencing a nursing shortage, and this is amplified by the current wave of the pandemic. Also, the economic rebound underway in the U.S. has resulted in increased work-from-home jobs. This can be a barrier as we need to attract the people needed for in-person patient care. To combat this, Human Resources is in a continual mode of market surveillance to ensure we are keeping pace with both wages and benefits. We implemented several nursing wage adjustments to include revised premium rates and shift differentials. Furthermore, we have implemented significant referral bonuses for key roles at Gilchrist, GBMC Health Partners and GBMC hospital. We are doing this to incentivize our employees to help us hire new staff.  

Due to critical staffing shortages in clinical areas, the hospital (GBMC HealthPartners and Gilchrist each have their own) has instituted an alternative labor pool. As part of the alternative labor pool, staff will be assigned into clinical patient care roles, given nurse helper duties, or assist in other areas to support hospital operations (pharmacy and distribution). Managers are encouraged to call 443-849-6619 or email alp@gbmc.org to identify their staffing needs. Any employees who meet the outlined criteria in the Alternative Labor Pool program overview document, who are interested in taking a patient care assignment or taking a supportive role can complete the availability form via the following link. 

Q: Is there any bottom line message you want to get out there to folks who may have started to look into a career in healthcare and GBMC?
Healthcare careers have never been as needed or as appreciated as they are today. As a society, we have learned much about the science of healthcare in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Specifically, at GBMC, we are fortunate to have science experts and clinical leadership who have guided us to deliver quality patient care. If you are interested in pursuing a career in healthcare where you can experience career satisfaction and have a positive impact on our community, then please apply to GBMC HealthCare. As an independent community healthcare system with a participative employee culture, GBMC HealthCare is unique from other healthcare employers. Visit here to search job opportunities and apply today.

Q: What do you think it means to employees when they receive support from the community?
GBMC is fortunate that our community partners provide both emotional support and financial support to our workforce. Many messages of patient gratitude are displayed throughout our hospital as a reminder to our employees that our work is making a positive impact in the community. Our patients and patient families are thanking us and inspiring us to continue this great work. This gratitude helps to fuel our employees during the most difficult of times. Also, this same community stepped forward to provide monetary contributions to our Healthcare Worker’s Fund. This fund has enabled us to provide a financial safety net for our employees experiencing financial hardship during the pandemic, as well as provide for increased employee recognition through our Peer-to-Peer recognition program and added resilience programming such as yoga and massages. Our community’s high engagement with our GBMC mission is an important contributor to employee satisfaction. 

I want to thank Anna Maria and her staff for everything they do to recruit the people we need!

Thank You!!
Earlier this week, The Church of the Good Shepperd donated more than 100 meals for both the adult and pediatric Emergency Department day and evening shifts. This was truly amazing, and I know our people greatly appreciated the gift.

I am so grateful to our patients and the communities we serve for their unwavering support and commitment to GBMC. Whether it is providing food to our frontline workers, offering thanks and prayers for our team members, or acting in other ways, big and small, to show their gratitude and their care for our people, it is really inspiring. Thank you!

Will the pandemic ever end?

We in healthcare are all exhausted. The daily stress of caring for many sick people and putting ourselves at risk is taking a toll. And yet, I continue to be amazed with our team’s resilience. Staff come to work every day to treat people in need and to care for them the way they want their own loved ones cared for. 

I was very proud earlier this week to escort Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski to some of our departments that have been the most affected by COVID-19. We visited the adult and pediatric emergency departments and Unit 38, a medical unit that has cared for hundreds of COVID patients. At each stop, the county executive heard from our leaders and thanked our people for their efforts. 

This week, Governor Hogan declared a state of emergency, giving the Secretary of Health, Dennis Schrader, more power to oversee hospitals and other providers to help us get through this latest surge. One thousand members of the National Guard will be deployed to setup more testing centers and to transport patients where regular ambulance services have been depleted. 

Over the past two weeks, GBMC has opened three new testing centers to alleviate the volume of people looking for testing from the Emergency Department (ED). The first, in the trailer outside the ED is for people who present to the ED but who are deemed to not be significantly ill after a screening exam. The second site was opened at our GBMC Health Partners advanced primary care center on Padonia Road. This is for GBMC Health Partners primary care patients. The third, on the ground floor of the Kahlert Pavilion (Physicians Pavilion North) is for any community member who wants to be tested. We have offered our “drive through” site on farmhouse hill to the Secretary of Health in hopes that the State will open a testing center there. 

As you can see, we are using our core competency, redesigning care, to deal with issues as they arise. We have begun to limit elective surgery to free capacity and staff for more COVID admissions and we are building an alternative labor pool to augment our clinical staff if the number of sick COVID-19 patients continues to grow. 

We know that the Omicron variant is much more contagious than the previous forms of the virus and that on average it causes people to be less sick. Over the past three weeks our Emergency Department volume has skyrocketed, but it has dropped significantly over the past 4 days. This mirrors what was seen in South Africa and in the United Kingdom with Omicron, so we are hopeful that we are getting closer to herd immunity.

Many people have asked me over the last several weeks, “what can we do to reinvigorate ‘joy’ at work?”    

Our fabulous Vice President for Philanthropy and Marketing and Communication, Jenny Coldiron has worked with Patty Leaverton, the Corner Shop Manager, to provide snacks to weekend and off-shift clinical staff. Jenny and Greg Shaffer and their marketing and communications team have been collecting expressions of thanks from patients and members of the community for healthcare workers who have made a difference for them. The marketing team came up with the idea for a Wall of Gratitude, located by the former main entrance of the hospital. This will be a place where our community shares words of encouragement, appreciation and thanks for the care and compassion they experienced at GBMC or Gilchrist. I have been reviewing a few of the 360 (and counting) submissions. These letters clearly serve as a bright spot for healthcare workers on the front lines battling the pandemic. If you would like to submit a message please visit here, where you can both submit and read the messages.

By the ED concourse you will find another visual display that will be used to promote messages of encouragement and thanks.

What are other ways for us to increase joy at work?  Please give us your thoughts.

Unit 47 is officially open!

Earlier this week, we held a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open Unit 47 as the new Integrative Care Unit. This unit has moved from Unit 36 to continue its mission of serving behavioral health patients with acute medical problems. Click here to see a tour of the new space. I want to thank everyone responsible for creating this beautiful space where our outstanding staff can better treat those in need.