Post by Chris Fournier on Mar 30, 2020 9:53:17 GMT -8
Survey Question:
"In what ways has the team prepared for staff to not be available (e.g., team members need to self-quarantine, need to be home to care for kids released from school) - resulting an in understaffed team?"
Here is a quick summary of survey responses related to this topic (emphasis added by me):
- Mobile technology, mobile team meeting capability, cross-coverage for teams
- Telehealth allows for staff to continue providing services in a quarantined context, potentially with greater accessibility. We are educating clients on the need to proceed with our limited contact protocol while also espousing the benefits of this approach so that clients can see the value in it.
- We are planning for 1/3 of staff to be quarantined. Staff from other programs filling in when needed.
- working remotely, cutting non essential contacts
- all staff have been informed to take their technology home daily to prepare for working from home and advise how to make use of telephone services
- Laptops, hotspots, team conference call for team meeting
- Each staff member has a list of consumers they will call and check in with. There is a "skeleton crew" who will address urgent issues like medication needs. If consumer's need medications that are at the office a nurse will deliver the medications to the door of the consumer. If consumer's medications are in the pharmacy we will ask the pharmacy to deliver them to the house (when appropriate). We are still working out the bugs in this plan.
- The Daily Schedule is modified to accommodate low staffing. Instead of a full team working the normal day to day operations, they will be operating on abbreviated scale while ensuring clients needs are being met. We have scheduled back up staff to fill in if someone needed to take care of themselves or family
- We are sharing staff between programs to be able to meet the needs of all programs. We have staff that are home-based completing CCA's, PCP's, NCTOPPS, and other admin tasks so staff who is in the field can completely focus on clients. Home based staff will also be providing as many phone contacts and case coordination as possible. We are also encouraging night and weekend visits for staff with children if they have child-care during those times and the clients are amenable.
- Reducing visits to essential only.
- As per emergency and/or inclement weather policy focused on assessing staff availability and triaging priorities (includes all agency staff to address needs)
- Prioritize highest impact services (ie. prioritizing medication administration over vocational applications). Meet with higher acuity clients first. We have also done contingency planning across the organization to identify non-essential services and where staff can be re-deployed.
- Prioritizing visits, consideration of one person running med deliveries to reduce exposure.
- We anticipate we will be understaffed at periods in the next 8 weeks and will look at client visits on an individual basis to make sure essential needs are met.
- Services will be reduced so we can continue to function with only two employees in any given day. We have a team of 15. 10 who work as nurses or clinicians, so we can continue to work at minimal staffing levels.