Bucks Co. Hospital Is First To Get Help In PA Strike Team Program
SELLERSVILLE, PA — A Bucks County hospital is the first in Pennsylvania to receive an out-of-state health care strike team, deployed by the state health department to assist in staffing shortages while caring for COVID-19 patients.
The strike team of 10 registered nurses, provided through GHR Healthcare under contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Health, began assisting workers at Grand View Health in Sellersville over the weekend. Acting Secretary of Health Keara Klinepeter shared the news in a Monday announcement.
“We are extremely grateful for the continued efforts of healthcare workers on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 as the number of hospitalizations push healthcare facilities toward maximum capacity,” she said. “Everyone in the community who needs care is affected when hospitals are forced to deal with the unprecedented capacity and workforce-related challenges exacerbated by COVID-19.”
The intensive care unit at Grand View Hospital is nearly at capacity, according to a New York Times data dashboard. In the most recent data reported by the hospital, the intensive care unit was at 94 percent capacity with less than one ICU bed available.
Grand View Health reported that it was treating 40 COVID-19 patients.
"Not only are the patients sick, but the employees are sick, too," Bridget Vincent, a nurse at Grand View, told WFMZ-TV. "We've had a lot of people out. Not many of us left to take care of the patients that come in."
Other Bucks County hospitals have been a little less inundated, although they are still struggling to keep up with a high volume of patients and lower numbers of staff due to ongoing COVID-19 infection in the community. St. Mary Medical Center was at 89 percent capacity in the latest data, and Doylestown Health was at 53 percent capacity.
"While the unvaccinated population is the minority of individuals in our community, they represent a significant majority of those hospitalized," Dr. Scott Levy, the chief medical officer at Doylestown Health, told Patch in early January. "Overwhelmingly, those in the ICU and requiring ventilators are not vaccinated."
The strike team rollout to Grand View is part of the first component of the Wolf administration’s multi-layered initiative to support Pennsylvania’s health care staff and mitigate the staffing shortage amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The department notified hospitals last week of the process to request short-term staffing support strike teams.
The department is contracting health care professionals through GHR Healthcare, which is focusing its staff engagement and recruitment on health care professionals from outside of Pennsylvania to avoid heightening current staffing limitations within the state.
State strike team members — which may include physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses and respiratory therapists — provide short-term staffing assistance for seven to 14 days. Hospitals will be responsible for managing day-to-day work assignments for state strike team members.
“The intent is that these staff will fill in for a limited time while hospitals develop their own longer-term sustainable staffing solutions,” Klinepeter said, noting that staffing resources are scarce and will be prioritized to address the most acute needs and maximize systemwide impact.
Requests for staffing assistance are accepted on a rolling basis, according to a release from Gov. Tom Wolf's administration. Evaluations to match requests with available resources will be conducted twice each week.
This staffing assistance is separate from the federal strike teams deployed earlier in January to hospitals in Scranton and York. The administration was recently granted an extension for the federal strike teams, according to the release, meaning both will be in place until the beginning of March.
Meanwhile, to encourage residents to avoid seeking COVID-19 tests at hospitals, the Wolf administration is aiming to increase testing capacity throughout the commonwealth, including:
Ensuring in-person learning continues by offering K-12 school districts free weekly COVID-19 services at no cost to participating schools through the departments of Health and Education, in partnership with Concentric by Gingko Bioworks.
Educating counties, municipalities and health systems about the federal reimbursement available to them for eligible COVID-related expenses including activities such as setting up their own community-based testing sites.
Meeting with manufacturers to offer incentives to increase production of COVID-19 tests to meet the growing need from the private sector for the public to have negative COVID-19 tests for travel, public events, dining and more.
Bucks County is still distributing rapid COVID-19 tests to residents through Feb. 3, or as supplies last.
Last month, Patch also compiled a list of testing sites in Bucks County provided by pharmacies and clinics.
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This article originally appeared on the Doylestown Patch
