Mainebiz

V O L . X X V I N O. X I I J U N E 1 , 2 0 2 0 16 L E W I S T O N / A U B U R N / W E S T E R N M A I N E J oanne Kenny-Lynch has watched viruses for a living for nearly three decades, so she wasn't worried in January when she started watching one in China. But still, as director of infection pre- vention for Central Maine Healthcare, she brought it up at the annual leaders meeting Jan. 22. It was the day after the first reported U.S. case of the virus, which didn't yet have a name. She and her team guide the hospital in dealing with infections, most of which never make the news. "I was just trying to get them used to hearing about it." No one was thinking pandemic. "ey said, 'Oh there's Joanne, she's happy because she's got another bug to play with,'" she says. But things happened fast. "It went from 'Hey, look what's going on here' to 'Oh boy, here it comes.'" 'This will shake our world' January was a buoyant time for CMH. After years of financial and staff upheaval, things had turned around under the leadership of CEO Jeff Brickman, who was recognized in March as a Mainebiz Business Leader of the Year. On Jan. 25, CMH held a public meeting to introduce plans for an oncol- ogy center. A Lewiston urgent care cen- ter was set to open in March, and more expansion was on the horizon. Behind the scenes, Kenny-Lynch was tracking the virus, sending out weekly information to departments, including a graph showing the spread. "Each week you'd see more countries where the little blue dots were moving to, from Wuhan, China, to South Korea, to Japan, to Italy." She soon realized, "Wow, this is going to shake our world." John Alexander, CMH chief medical officer, was following the virus, too. e hospital keeps an eye on infectious dis- eases, like the flu, or a measles outbreak it had prepared for a few months before. In early February, as what was now COVID-19 spread on the West Coast, he started getting questions from both inside and outside the hospital. "at's often one of the first things that happens," Alexander says. "People have questions." By the end of February, it had snowballed, Kenny-Lynch says. "We realized this was way bigger than two departments." ey began to check things like capacity to isolate patients at Central Maine Medical Center, in Lewiston, and the system's hospitals in Bridgton and Rumford. ey checked personal protective equipment inventory and CMH ordered HEPA negative- air systems, used to scrub the air in infected patient rooms. At one point, Kenny-Lynch told Alexander, "I can't do this alone anymore." When Alexander moved to set up a hospital incident command system, she was relieved. Structured by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the system outlines command and commu- nication strategy. "It's like, all right, it's not just the infection prevention show, every hand on deck," she says. Baptisms with fire Sheldon Stevenson, an ER doctor, was preparing to begin a new role as system chief for emergency medicine. In February, a colleague texted him about COVID-19, concerned about hospital response. Stevenson responded that he was following it too, but there were big- ger things to think about. "It's a long way off," he said. On March 2, the day before he started his new job, he was watching the news when it clicked. He remembers thinking, "is is going to be a huge problem." e next day he attended the first informal meeting of the group that would later form incident command. "It really evolved quickly," he says. at day, as the new emergency medicine chief, he focused on getting his group ready for possible COVID-19 emissions. A week later, he was named head of the medical branch of the incident command team. Stoy Hancock, was also in a new role, as executive director of facilities manage- ment, and was new to the hospital. He's been in health care facilities management for two decades and had pandemic training, particularly for the Ebola and SARS outbreaks. "Nothing to compare to this, though" he says. Just days after starting his job, at the first incident command meeting on March 9, Hancock was assigned to fig- ure out what space in the hospital could be retrofitted into a COVID-19 unit. It would need individual negative air pres- sure rooms, and whatever department was displaced would need a new home. His deadline was ASAP. "What a great way to introduce myself to the senior leadership," he says. He was still learning the hospital layout. Within five days the same-day sur- gery department had become a 14-room COVID-19 unit. In a process he figures was 40% guidelines and 60% "MacGyver," Hancock designed four-walled rooms out of three-sided examination bays, using heavy plastic. ey had a "storm door" for safe entry and a larger zipper opening to accommodate gurneys. e windows had to be removed, replaced with plywood, because the neg- ative air machines need an exhaust outlet. P H O T O / J O S E L E I VA C O U R T E S Y O F C M H Preparing for a PANDEMIC Central Maine Healthcare put a plan into place that transformed the hospital B y M a u R e e n M i l l i k e n F O C U S Members of CMH's team that prepared the hospital for the COVID-19 pandemic include, from left, Sheldon Stevenson; director of emergency medicine; Joanne Kenny-Lynch, director of infection prevention; and Stoy Hancock, director of facilities management.

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