What has amazed me most in my time at MSBI is the agility of our teams to adapt to so much change. Right now that is truer than ever.

We are uniquely positioned to expand our capacity to support the needs for this pandemic, and so many people have helped make that happen. Today I want to recognize a few of them.

The biggest challenge in getting our new units operational is staffing. We turned to the system, several agencies, and many others in the community. It’s overwhelming to think about how many people they helped us find who volunteered to come to the front lines to support our cause.

Onboarding so many new people is a giant, complicated undertaking that could never fully be explained in this short message. Ensuring that our new colleagues get the information they need to feel comfortable and provide great care here is an even larger effort.

We’ve had many members of our family step forward to become “super users” for our platforms. They are spending a lot of time with newly-onboarded staff, training them on our systems and operations. Though they are second-nature to these super users, in reality our systems are complex and take time to learn. This group willingly took on this extra responsibility on top of their daily work.

In addition, each new clinical member coming to MSBI shadows one of our veteran staff members—nurses, PCAs, USAs, NPs, PAs, and Hospitalists—to understand the workflows and care plans for our patients and to get their questions answered. Our clinical team members have been so kind and so available even during such a stressful and challenging time in their own work. Thank you! We could not do this without your compassion and patience.

There are many others that contributed to this effort, including our HR, IT, and nursing teams. It’s impossible to name everyone involved but we are grateful to you all. This extraordinary teamwork makes me proud to be at MSBI. Once again, we are making history.

It’s Lab Week! I’m not sure I can fully express how extraordinary our lab department is. They’ve been challenged in so many ways these past few months like we all have, and they have risen to every occasion.

Early on, when we heard about the first case of COVID-19 in our community, we knew more were coming. As we increased our inpatient bed capacity, the laboratory adjusted and expanded our testing capacity, and they haven’t missed a beat. In fact, we were the first hospital in the system to offer rapid testing for patients likely to have COVID-19 infection.

In addition, they have played an instrumental part in collecting and preparing plasma for the convalescent plasma study in which Mount Sinai is participating. We have had four patients at MSBI qualify for this potentially life-saving treatment, which requires a lot of work from our lab to manage. You can read more about this promising treatment here.

Here are a few pictures of our lab team in action:

The lab has been through many changes in the past few years and some members of our MSBI family had moved to other areas as a result of our transformation. When we needed extra hands during the pandemic, Beverly Doman, who had been at the Union Square lab, came back to offer her help. We are thrilled to have her back during such an important time.

More members of our lab team:

Our lab includes a wide range of true experts who help prepare specimens, evaluate tests, and ultimately give our teams the information they need to care for our patients. They are saving lives daily.

I couldn’t be more proud of our team for being available at all hours, being flexible during so much change, and being creative beyond imagination. We celebrate you today and always.

I want to highlight two groups who have shown nonstop courage and dedication behind the scenes during this pandemic.

Our environmental services team has always had an absolutely vital role in keeping our patients and our employees safe. Now, their job is even more important and, in many ways, more complicated. Keeping our facility safe and cleaning the rooms during a patient’s stay and between each patient is some of the very most important work here on our campus. Where would we be without our EVS colleagues? Here are some of the members of our EVS team:

I recently heard about one EVS team member going above and beyond on 10 Linsky. Walkiria Zamora has been taking care of the nurses there who just arrived from all around the country to help us. You can read more about her here.

Our transporters are also vital members of our MSBI family. In the time that they spend with our patients, they always go the extra mile to put smiles on their faces, to make them feel safer, and to connect in other ways.  I’m so proud of them for being so present and compassionate.

Both EVS team members and transporters spend a lot of time in PPE and interact with our patients daily. They have been agile as we rapidly expand in response to the pandemic. They have openly welcomed additional staff to their team from perioperative and CSPD services, NYEE, Union Square, and outside agencies. So many of our patients cannot have regular outside visitors and our own staff have stepped in as best as possible to fill those voids. We could not be more grateful for their generosity and compassion.

There are many more heroes and I will continue to share these amazing stories.

While so many of you are giving everything you possibly can to care for our patients, I also want to recognize one of the teams helping to keep you safe and healthy.

Our Employee Health Services (EHS) team has been incredibly agile in the midst of this pandemic. They moved to 4 Silver at the beginning of February, and they love that they are closer together and more connected. Just as they settled in, COVID-19 hit hard and they had to adapt to rapidly-changing employee health needs.

In addition to the increased employee visits volume, they are receiving an average of 200 inquiries daily from our MSBI family with questions or concerns. To meet this increased need, they quickly expanded their telehealth capabilities by engaging an army of willing health system providers from around our Downtown campus. They also set up a call center with extended hours so that they are available 7 am to 11 pm during weekdays and 7:30 am to 7:30 pm on weekends.

If that isn’t enough, this team quickly learned Epic so they could streamline the consult and testing process for everyone. The EHS team huddles daily, reacts in real time to our rapidly evolving situation, and has remained present and resilient through all of this. I am incredibly proud of them.