COVID Chronicle

When the Rules Change, We Change the Rules One of the hardest changes we faced was limiting visitation for patients. The support of family and friends is vital to healthcare, but for the first time it was unsafe for patients, staff, and the visitors themselves to allow them in most care settings. It took some time for CMS to catch up with the CDC recommendations around limiting visitation, but when they did we adjusted out policies looking to technology and services like Facetime, Zoom, and Skype to help our patients maintain their connections with their support teams. We also made specific, compassionate exemptions for patients who require care advocates, birthing mothers, and end of life visitation. The comfort and care of our patients remained our guiding star, while keeping safety top of mind.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 Limited access to testing became (and remains) a hot button issue across the country, not just in Maine. Northern Light Health worked hard to not only establish testing capacity in-house to be able to expand the state’s ability to offer testing but to establish a rapid assessment process to screen patients who met the testing criteria set by the state. A statewide triage line, staffed by care managers from Northern Light Beacon Health, still leads patients with COVID-19 symptoms through a series of screening questions to help determine the next steps for care and direct them to the assessment site closest to them for additional care. The good news is that more and more testing is becoming available, in May the state announced its ability to process 7,000 tests per week. The challenging news is that the materials to take the samples needed to run the tests are still in short supply but working together as a system and with our healthcare partners across the state we’re sure that we’ll meet this challenge, too. A challenge of another sort arose amid this latest testing twist. When the state announced it was expanding testing, the phone calls sharply increased to our providers and hospitals from Mainers seeking to be tested. When we could not accommodate all requests due to a limited supply of test kits, some people became very angry with our staff on the other end of the line. Kudos to those who managed the collective outrage with a calm and professional voice.

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