Nurses have always answered the call to serve. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided Ascension’s 60,000 nurses the unique opportunity to support and serve each other in new ways.
Ascension nurses serve in more than 2,600 sites of care and 150 hospitals across 20 states and Washington, D.C. – including some of the nation’s areas hit hardest by the coronavirus. To support the provision of safe, comprehensive care, hundreds of our front-line nurses have taken on new roles or moved to new markets to help in this crisis.
More than 6,700 Ascension nurses, student nurses and nurse interns in 10 states were cross-trained to serve in intensive care units, Emergency Departments, acute care areas and respiratory therapy so they could help wherever and whenever needed. In addition, many of our clinicians – mostly nurses – volunteered to be redeployed to areas with the greatest need, where the surge of COVID-19 cases threatened to overwork clinicians.
This effort was coordinated by a newly designed process, the Ascension Critical Staffing Travel Program. Through this program, 314 Ascension nurses and respiratory therapists to date from
Alabama, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee accepted a new challenge, choosing to leave their families and communities to assist their colleagues in other Ascension markets.
Ascension nurses share deep connections with each other even outside their own markets, and they consider themselves all part of the same family. When one hurts, they all hurt. together. As the surge hit Michigan, Maryland and Illinois, Ascension nurses were asked to travel to those markets to help colleagues dealing with the crisis, and many answered the call. By helping where they were needed most, they not only provided compassionate, personalized care to those we serve; they also were able to ease the burden for fellow nurses.
Here's one example: Glynda Stenger had spent a month caring for patients in a COVID-19 unit she helped set up at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis in Wichita, Kansas. She volunteered for that assignment. When Ascension Michigan needed help to deal with a surge of coronavirus patients, she didn’t hesitate. "If they need me somewhere, then I want to go, because that's what I became a nurse to do," she said.
With the support of Ascension leadership, Glynda and six fellow nurse volunteers from three acute-care hospitals of Ascension Kansas traveled to Michigan, bringing medals and prayer cards depicting St. Francis, St. Michael and guardian angels to share with their colleagues.
The program also benefited the traveling nurses, who were able to gain valuable experience working in COVID-19 hot spots that may help them when they return to their home hospitals. In addition, the travelers learned first hand about an Ascension team-based model of nursing being used in Michigan – knowledge they will bring back to Kansas.
"We truly stand on the shoulders of the ones who came before us, and I believe now, more than ever, they would be proud of our work as One Ascension," said Carla Yost, Chief Nursing and Chief Quality Officer, Ascension Kansas. "We thank all of our nurses for demonstrating and living our Mission and showing what it means to be an Ascension caregiver."