It was a well-oiled machine that was built in less than 24 hours.
WellSpan Health leaders, working with WellSpan York Hospital, quickly assembled a transportation system during a recent snowstorm, to ensure that team members could safely get to work and continue to care for the large numbers of patients resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
About 400 WellSpan York Hospital employees were transported from their homes or a York hotel, where they had spent the night, on Dec. 15 and 16. They were driven by a convoy that included rented vehicles and four-wheel drive vehicles driven by volunteers from a local Jeep club.
“It all worked so well and there were so many components to it, “ said Christopher Krichten, WellSpan Health director of safety and emergency management and pre-hospital services. “Staff were so appreciative to get to work safely. At the end of the day, that’s what mattered to all of us.”
Previously, if a snowstorm was expected, WellSpan York Hospital housed some employees overnight at the hospital. The hospital supplied mattresses, linens and care kits (including a washcloth, toothbrush and toothpaste). However, the hospital did not want to group employees, sleeping on mattresses in rooms, during this most recent storm due to the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
With the forecast of a large snow looming, Keith Noll, WellSpan senior vice president and chief administrative officer, reached out to Krichten to develop a system to safely transport staff from their homes and a nearby hotel, where some staff would be housed. Krichten suggested pulling on the skills of First Aid & Safety Patrol, which operates the WellSpan One Call Center, which schedules patient transports for WellSpan.
“If they can coordinate transports for our patients, we thought why can’t they do that for our staff?” Noll asked.
After lining up dispatchers from First Aid & Safety Patrol, the hospital leased three vehicles from Bailey Coach, a York company. It rented two others. The PA Jeeps Club offered the services of five drivers with four-wheel vehicles. Together, the 10 drivers shuttled team members from the nearby hotel and went out to private homes to pick up people late in the day on Dec. 15 and early on Dec. 16. Everyone wore masks and observed safety precautions.
At the height of the storm, the call center was fielding between 50 and 75 calls an hour from team members looking to arrange a ride.
Other WellSpan hospitals used a similar system, housing employees at nearby hotels and transporting them to work, Krichten said. WellSpan York Hospital likely will adopt this new system and other hospitals may adopt aspects of it, if it makes their operations easier.
“If we put people in a comfortable place where they feel safe, and transport them back and forth to work, we think that we will get more volunteers who will be willing to work,” Krichten said. “We want to do the best thing we can for our staff.”
