Federal strike team helps Memorial Hospital care for patients in Emergency Department

While local health officials are reporting improvement in the number of COVID-19 infections in the community, and a possible corner turned in the latest surge, a federal strike team of medical professionals is helping to ease the burden of front-line caregivers at Memorial Hospital.

Memorial Hospital nurse Luke Eichorn, RN, shows nurse Lt. Commander Sally Akinjero, RN, where supplies are kept in the Emergency Department on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022. Akinjero is part of a 10-member team deployed by the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps to help with a recent surge of COVID-19 patients.

The 10-member team of U.S. Public Health Service officers, comprised of seven registered nurses, a nurse practitioner, a nurse anesthetist, and led by a physician assistant, were recently sent to the hospital by the Assistant Secretary for Health and the U.S. Surgeon General within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Memorial put in a request for assistance back in December.

So far, the team has been working in the hospital’s Emergency Department, but its members could branch out to other areas of the hospital as needed during its planned 30-day stay in South Bend.

“This is huge for our entire hospital,” said Rachel Savoie, MSL, BSN, RN, executive director of Nursing and Clinical Services at Memorial. “With these additional skilled team members, we can work toward decompressing the emergency department, get patients seen quicker and feel a breath of relief knowing that we are getting needed help. This team will help us shift some resources that previously may have been sent there to other parts of the hospital that have a staffing need.”

While omicron, for those who are vaccinated, does not typically cause symptoms that are as severe as the virus’ initial form or its delta variant, it is more easily spread than its two predecessors. While the number of COVID-positive inpatients has started to decrease, it continues to send people, predominantly those who are unvaccinated, to hospitals here and across the country.

“The symptoms and the risk are markedly reduced if you’re vaccinated,” said Capt. Rebecca Bunnell, Officer in Charge of the team deployed to Memorial. “We can deploy to provide surge capacity, but wouldn’t it be so much better if we could increase vaccinations and reduce the risk of COVID-19  in communities?”

“We’re thrilled to be here”

Some states, such as Illinois and Pennsylvania, have asked the federal government to send strike teams to hospitals throughout their states. In December, Memorial asked the Indiana Department of Health to request a team for the hospital. HHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency then evaluated Memorial’s needs and compared them to other hospitals before granting the request, said Zachary Roberts, the hospital’s Emergency Preparedness coordinator.

Three years into the pandemic, Beacon’s teams are tired and struggling with their own burnout, Savoie said. “We evaluate our staffing several times every day to adjust our capacity and care for this community to our fullest,” she said. “Our adjustment takes into account open positions, those out ill and our total number of patients. It is a constant puzzle that we are trying to work through.”

Bunnell said the agency is supporting hospitals around the nation facing the same challenges.

“We’re thrilled to be here and support the health care providers who have taken the brunt of this,” Bunnell said. “This is a great health system and clearly under some strain. It’s been a long two years.”

Public health, disaster experience

The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps traces its origins to the Merchant Marines, which screened immigrants at Ellis Island for infectious diseases. Today the corps, which has a military structure but is not armed, deploys health care professionals to help local health systems in the aftermath of natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes and floods, as well as public health emergencies such as COVID-19.

“When the health systems are destroyed or strained due to these reasons, that is frequently when we get called to support the local communities,” Bunnell said. “This is just a unique situation in that we’ve got a surges in COVID-19 happening simultaneously across the nation increasing the need for support across the private sector nationally. As a result, we have been deployed to provide surge capacity in some of the hospitals.”

When asked if the team was similar to traveling nurses that a hospital pays to cover staff shortages, Bunnell explained that it is different in that Corps officers have public health and disaster management experience.

“Many of our officers start their clinical careers working in direct patient care either in Indian tribal nations, caring for undocumented migrants in detention centers, or inmates in the Bureau of Prisons,” she said. “For instance, during a previous response our team supported a nursing home helping them with a huge COVID outbreak, in order to keep transmission rates low and keep people safe.”

Two come home

Lt. Ralph Tuason, RN, works in the Memorial Hospital Emergency Department on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022. Tuason was one of 10 health care professionals sent to the hospital to help during a surge in COVID-19-positive patients.

Bunnell said the Corps has sent more than 4,400 officers to local health systems in support of the COVID-19 response. Officers can be assembled into teams from across the country, but seven members of this team happen to come from the Washington, D.C. metro area. Two were born in South Bend, including Bunnell, who moved away at age 7.

“For me it’s a blessing to come back and serve a home community,” she said. “I’ve been in this uniform 23 years and I’ve never gotten that opportunity. It’s an honor to be able to come back and take care of a  place where I have roots.”

The aid comes three months after the Indiana Army National Guard deployed a team to help Memorial handle growing numbers of COVID-19 patients infected by the delta variant in October. That state group included an oversight leader, six medics and 13 generalists, who helped in the hospital’s Police & Security, Nutritional Services and Environmental Services departments.

The guard also sent six members to Elkhart General Hospital for the month of November, including three generalists in Environmental Services, two generalists in the Intensive Care Center and two medics in the laboratory and Emergency Department.