Caring for the Patient with COVID-19 in a Rehabilitation Unit

Similar to many hospital systems throughout the United States, the acute rehabilitation (AR) unit at Rush University Medical Center (RUMC) in Chi - cago, Illinois, was transformed into a COVID-19 rehabilitation unit during the spring 2020 surge. Because COVID-19 presented as a novel virus (Wang et al., 2020) with substantial acuity, an immediate interprofessional approach to rehabilitation was required in a context of a lack of evidence-based literature or best practices. Educational preparation provides a background in physical disability and mental health training, which positions OTs uniquely to collaborate with patients in identifying their priority goals, and ways to promote independence and success with these goals. [...]they worked closely with physicians to ensure patients with memory loss understood their treatment timeline. RUMC leaders initiated an innovative program to address this isolation while patients were in the AR unit, in which videoconferences facilitated communication between patients and their loved ones.

COVID-19 and Nurse-Sensitive Indicators: Using Performance Improvement Teams to Address Quality Indicators During a Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Nurse-sensitive quality indicators have historically been used as a metric of nursing care quality in health care organizations. PROBLEM: At our academic medical center, critically ill COVID-19 patients led to a dramatic change in the organizational standard of care resulting in an increase in nurse-sensitive health care-associated infections. APPROACH: Nursing performance improvement teams provided the structure for development of innovative strategies implemented in real time by our frontline clinicians to address the quality and safety issues found with these elevated health care-associated infections. OUTCOMES: A new COVID-19 CLABSI (central line-associated bloodstream infection) Tip Sheet and a Prone Positioning Kit for HAPI Prevention are strategies developed to address quality of care issues experienced with the COVID-19 patients. CONCLUSIONS: Deployment of these innovative practice strategies has led to a decline in health care-associated infections and instituted a new care standard for the COVID-19 patients.