RWJBarnabas Health’s most valuable resource during the pandemic? Its clinicians

At the height of the pandemic New Jersey-centered RWJBarnabas experienced an approximated 1,800 COVID-19 inpatient cases. 

At the height of the pandemic, New Jersey-centered RWJBarnabas Health had an approximated 1,800 COVID-19 inpatient cases. 

Now that the surge has subsided to the level that the community is handling less than a hundred inpatients with the virus, president and CEO Barry Ostrowsky believes his workforce is not only established up to get well from the past surge of cases, but also positioned for long term development. 

“We were being blessed we under no circumstances experienced to make serious decisions among and amongst people,” Ostrowsky explained. “And though it was a battle to guarantee that we experienced adequate machines, and adequate PPE, and adequate medication, we were being, in actuality, in a position to get by means of it. But I would not be candid if I told you there were not evenings and weekends and days exactly where we came dangerously shut to indicating ‘We don’t have what we need to have.'”

The system’s endurance by means of the pandemic can be attributed to 3 principal resources: the leadership’s administration philosophy, the difficult function of the clinicians and a potent economical environment prior to the outbreak. 

RWJBarnabas has been privileged enough not to have furloughed or laid off team associates all through or following the pandemic, Ostrowsky explained. 

“The plan that I founded is that our communities have suffered ample and I am not likely to make far more unemployment for the very communities that are struggling,” he explained. “To the extent we have to defer some initiatives, possibly that’s what we’ll have to do. But I am not in a posture to advocate a reduction in workforce just to make the financials glance that substantially improved.”

CROSS-Teaching

Outside of guaranteeing work protection for its workers, RWJBarnabas relied on its healthcare team to get by means of the hardest times. 

If just one medical center in the community was facing higher volumes and need, workers from other services switched locations to aid. Workforce associates cross-trained in new positions to ease some of the stress. Clinicians stepped into management roles and fashioned treatment teams to regulate the enhanced workload. 

“From a administration standpoint, at times the very best administration is to get out of the way and allow the clinicians do the function,” Ostrowsky explained.

RWJBarnabas CEO and President Barry Ostrowsky

The community is even leaning on its team to aid formulate designs for the probability of a 2nd wave. 

At the onset of the original surge, Ostrowsky questioned everyone to keep a diary of their experiences doing the job all through the pandemic. The system is now utilizing the individual tales of its workers to guide the way for its resurgence tactic. 

“The resurgence plan we have is a good just one, of training course. It can be informed by the experiences that we were being in a position to codify in authentic time when it was going on,” Ostrowsky explained. “I don’t want to have to implement it, but if it receives to the level exactly where the need for inpatient treatment is such, I am pretty confident about it.”

Economic Effect

Like most hospitals and overall health methods, RWJBarnabas’ finances were being noticeably impacted by the pandemic. The solutions that generated most of their profits were being halted, and even the federal aid they obtained was not ample to make up for the dropped earnings. 

But what has verified to be a critical portion of the network’s recovery is obtaining a potent balance sheet prior to the pandemic began, in accordance to Ostrowsky. 

That, alongside with obtaining a diversified overall health system that was in a position to deliver profits all through the lockdown by means of virtual treatment, was in a position to cushion RWJBarnabas’ finances all through a period of time of hardship. 

“So if you place all that jointly, it is really not as though you arrive out unscathed. You do, of training course, have weaker economical results, but no weaker solve to go after the mission,” Ostrowsky explained. “I assume we are blessed ample to have been, as I say, blessed with a balance sheet that permitted us to carry on.”

ACQUISITION AND INTEGRATION

As the overall health system commences its future period following COVID-19, it has started to find out new partnerships. In September it signed a definitive settlement to combine with Saint Peter’s Healthcare Procedure. 

The two methods will function jointly to make a 1,000-bed educational healthcare heart across quite a few campuses that Ostrowksy hopes will develop into a “countrywide destination” for a selection of applications and study. 

RWJBarnabas is also getting ready to announce a definitive settlement to purchase Trinitas Regional Health care Middle following the two signed a letter of intent very last calendar year. 

Furthermore, the community has started pursuing ambulatory treatment web-sites to purchase, knowing that those locations will host a sizeable quantity of treatment moving forward. 

In the conclusion, what Ostrowsky characteristics the network’s survival to is the “heroic” function that his scientific team carried out above the training course of the pandemic. 

“There was no way that we were being likely to allow them down by creating conclusions that would negatively effects not only their morale, but the energy they introduced to dealing with people,” he explained. “So that’s how we obtained by means of it.” 

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