10 » A magazine for and about Oregon Community Hospitals. she called a “very proactive” public health system that has found all kinds of entities collaborating on the pandemic response. Even so, Ogden said the surge put a strain on North Lincoln and PCH because it takes a higher level of care to tend to COVID patients. “If we have COVID patients, it’s more taxing on staff in terms of assignments, the need for enhanced PPE and just that enhanced level of safety required,” she said. “But our staff rose to the challenge.” Getting It Done With the surge in full swing this summer, hospitals had no choice but to tackle it head on. At Adventist, leaders brought in skilled travel nurses from elsewhere in the Adventist Health system. They also developed a nonclinical support team comprised of existing employees who could be redeployed from their traditional roles to help with other tasks like answering phones and connecting patients and families via iPad. “It was pretty amazing the way they stepped up to support patient care,” Erdman said. She said daily 8:30 a.m. meetings helped ensure staff had the resources they needed for the day. Partnering with Oregon Health and Science University, whose Mission Control helps monitor hospital capacity in the metro region, was also key to creating capacity so hospitals from elsewhere in Oregon could transfer their higher-acuity patients to “It’s just not sustainable using this type of expensive labor.” Leslie Ogden, CEO, Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital & Pacific Communities Hospital
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