Hartford Business Journal

HCH 4 Hartford Business Journal • November 16, 2020 • www.HartfordBusiness.com HEALTH CARE HEROES 2020 HONOREE CATEGORY: HEALTHCARE STAFF Nicole Caillouette Director of Laboratory Services Lawrence + Memorial Hospital/Westerly Hospital W hen Lawrence + Memorial and Westerly hospitals activated their incident command centers they also started opening specimen testing sites for members of the public needing to be tested for COVID-19. It was no small feat. Director of Laboratory Services Nicole Caillouette coordinated the response to erect testing tents in both New London and Westerly, Rhode Island. This required contacting tent vendors, sourcing PPE and test kits, creating a process in the electronic medical record to document test re- sults, developing a traffic-flow pattern so that patients could be tested with- out leaving their cars and, perhaps most challenging — staffing the tents. To address staffing, Caillouette secured the services of school nurses who were no longer needed in that capacity when schools were closed due to the pandemic. On average the two sites were testing almost 200 patients on a daily basis. At the same time, Caillouette was responsible for all other non-COVID testing patients required during the pandemic. In addition to testing patients for their healthcare needs, both L+M and Westerly have on-site laborato- ries to run the results of those tests. Throughout the pandemic Cail- louette led the charge to provide testing that was safe for both pa- tients and staff. HONOREE CATEGORY: HEALTHCARE STAFF Maria Capobianco Manager of Respiratory Therapy Charlotte Hungerford Hospital/Hartford HealthCare Northwest Region M aria Capobianco, who has over 30 years of experience in the respiratory therapy field, helps assess, treat and care for patients with breathing disorders. Her position can be physically and emotionally draining, especially keeping up with surges of critical patients in the emergency depart- ment during the COVID-19 pan- demic, but she does it with a smile. Due to the introduction and in- crease in COVID-19 infected patients over the past year, Capobianco's exper- tise was tapped to provide care to the most affected patients in the intensive care unit and patient isolation floors. She was hypervigilant about in- fection control to keep patients and staff safe, updated protocols to as- sist staff to concentrate on the care for the most critically ill patients, and increased the availability of staffing, ventilators and equipment to help with patient surges. "During the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, it wasn't only about helping patients to breathe," she said. "It was staying by their side because their loved ones could not be there. It's when we take out the breathing tube and the entire team is standing outside the room to cheer them on as they try to breathe on their own. It's working alongside fellow respiratory therapists who despite feeling tired and chal- lenged due to the surge of patients are going above and beyond to make sure every patient gets the best care pos- sible. It's a privilege I cherish." HONOREE CATEGORY: HEALTHCARE STAFF Nancy Dupont Nursing Director of Epidemiology Infectious Disease UConn Health U Conn Health Nursing Direc- tor of Epidemiology Nancy Dupont has always been a leader in biological illness prepared- ness and led the hospital's effort to educate staff during COVID-19. She shared insights related to personal protective equipment — including proper donning and doff- ing, mask reprocessing and facility and equipment cleaning — and the development of biocontainment area workflows within the nursing and ancillary departments. Dupont was also instrumental in the consultation regarding en- gineering controls: HEPA filters, negative pressure, Plexiglas instal- lation and waiting-room workflows. She also consulted in outpatient areas for interventions, require- ments and implementation of processes to ensure adequate social distancing for patients and staff. She worked on an enhanced, detailed workflow within the hos- pital's maternal fetal unit to ensure the safety of all moms and babies; even when patients were arriving from high-risk states, she worked effectively to keep all safe. Dupont also manned the COVID ho- tline for all staff 24/7, giving guidance and oversight to staff and patients. She is also a passionate cham- pion for UConn Health's initiatives to prevent hospital-associated infections and is always keeping patients, staff and learners out of harm's way. HONOREE CATEGORY: HEALTHCARE STAFF Keith Grant Senior System Director of Infection Prevention Hartford HealthCare K eith Grant is an APRN and senior system director of infection prevention at Hart- ford HealthCare. He worked 80-hour weeks during the pandemic to develop the health system's strategy to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Grant — who is also an ac- tive member of the U.S. Air Force Reserve Corps where he serves as a medical provider at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts — built infection control programs, collaborated with other health departments and ensured that the proper resources were in place to promote infection prevention practices. He also worked with Hartford HealthCare's Campus Care pro- gram — a partnership to offer health care to more than 18,000 students at Trinity College, Uni- versity of Hartford and Connecti- cut College — to establish safety measures and protocols to help guide school administrators when it came time for students to return to campus. Grant said the "discipline and fo- cus" he learned in the military has helped him get through the dark- est days of the pandemic, when the state hit its peak number of COVID- related deaths. "As the leader of infection preven- tion, it is my responsibility to en- sure that all members of our health system's community delivers care as safely as possible," he said.

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