Newswise — There’s nothing like a crisis to pull people together, and that’s exactly what COVID-19 did for hospitals and health care workers. As Corewell Health acknowledges the five-year anniversary of the pandemic, physicians and others reflect on how the crisis improved hospitals and changed those who work in them.
Meet the Corewell Health experts who helped drive and deliver change:
COVID-19 sparks collaboration efforts, preparation for future pandemic
- Post-COVID-19 collaboration efforts internally and externally have skyrocketed.
- “We still continue to have a lot of regular touch-bases around pandemic preparedness,” Nicholas Gilpin, D.O. said. “We’re constantly scanning the landscape for new and emerging threats – like measles in Texas, or avian flu, or Marburg in Africa. It’s not easy to develop a true ‘one-size-fits-most’ pandemic plan, because the response to a threat depends on several variables, but we are constantly discussing it.”
Expert: Dr. Nicholas Gilpin, medical director of epidemiology, Corewell Health in Southeast Michigan
Contact: [email protected] or 586.365.8654
Researching COVID-19: What we know five years later
- Insights into the innerworkings of the virus that causes COVID and how it continues to change
- Insights into the vaccine and the viral activation of the immune system
- What the broader research has told us to date
- What aspects of the COVID virus researchers are more likely to investigate moving forward
Expert: Jeremy Prokop, Ph.D., data scientist, Corewell Health
Contact: [email protected] or 517.256.5618
Love Letter to COVID-19: Nurse leader reflects on role as caregiver, advocate
- provided loving support to dying patients during the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic. “No one dies alone,” she said.
- She raised vaccine awareness in the Black community through countless conversations and virtual presentations, including to school and neighborhood groups, churches and the UAW.
- Recognized in 2022 as a , she is marking the pandemic’s five-year anniversary by sharing lessons learned in an op-ed, “Love Letter to COVID.”
Expert: Imana “Mo” Minard, director of nursing, emergency services, Corewell Health Farmington Hills Hospital
Contact: [email protected] or 586.610.5677
Virtual health care here to stay
- Corewell Health has been offering virtual care to patients for years, but the online offerings skyrocketed during the pandemic.
- Noteworthy advancements include easier access, more options, new tools to check patients’ vitals and symptoms, and even a 24/7 virtual behavioral health and substance use disorder clinic.
Experts: Michele Rizor, director of applications and platforms; Katie Thorson, manager of virtual health; and Subodh Jain, M.D., department chief of behavioral health, Corewell Health in West Michigan
Contact: [email protected] or 616.706.2608
COVID-19 was springboard for collaboration
- Communication with other hospitals, both within and outside of Corewell Health, helped hone certain practices. Disease management and infection prevention, particularly in the emergency department, are infinitely better now.
- “We learned we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel because every hospital system was facing the same challenges,” said Robert Nolan, D.O.
Expert: Dr. Robert Nolan, chief medical officer and emergency department physician, Corewell Health in Southwest Michigan
Contact: [email protected] or 616.540.0813
Multidisciplinary approach crucial for coordination, communication
- Early on, COVID-19 treatment team created treatment algorithms.
- Multi-disciplinary, coordinated approach was essential in developing rapid changes in treatment plans, isolation practices and testing.
- This allowed for quick changes to policy and widespread communication, responding to the ever-changing information coming from the CDC.
Expert: Russell Lampen, D.O., medical director of infection prevention and infectious diseases, Corewell Health in West Michigan
Contact: [email protected] or 616.443.0361
Nurses reclaiming their professional identity
- Professional identity is linked to high quality care, wellness and retention in the nursing profession.
- Workplace conditions during the pandemic undermined the core nursing characteristics of expertise, empowerment and compassion.
- Understanding these disruptions is an important step toward helping nurses through traumatic experiences and unplanned events.
- To support and retain nurses, organizations must find ways to help them reclaim and strengthen their professional identity.
Expert: Jennifer Kaiser, Ph.D., nurse scientist and lead author of
Contact: [email protected] or 616.443.0361
How research helped us get through COVID-19, will help us get through potential (future) pandemic
- The nation's largest blood serum testing study of COVID-19 among health care workers and patients took place at Corewell Health in Southeast Michigan. The study aimed to better understand whether people who already had coronavirus could get the disease again when it was safe for people to return to work. It also helped identify potential plasma donors.
- “We couldn’t have gotten through COVID-19 without research,” Matthew Sims, M.D., said. “It was an important part of coming out of the shutdown. One of the biggest projects we were involved in showed which health care workers were at the highest risk of exposure, that masking protected from that exposure and that the N95 masks worked better than surgical masks.”
Expert: Dr. Matthew Sims, director of infectious diseases research, Corewell Health in Southeast Michigan
Contact: [email protected] or 586.365.8654
“We learned to be nimble” amid urgent logistical challenges
- From quickly transitioning thousands of employees to virtual work to standing up a drive-thru testing center in a matter of days, leaders learned to be flexible and nimble.
- Opening and operating a mass vaccination clinic in Grand Rapids remains a great point of pride. Hospitals and other health professionals collaborated to administer more than 270,000 COVID-19 vaccinations.
- “We did it during COVID-19 so we can do it now,” said Julie Bulson.
Expert: Julie Bulson, director of business assurance; and Jason Joseph, chief digital and information officer
Contact: [email protected] or 616.540.0813
RSS