Beginning August 2, Intermountain will welcome several groups of nurses from Northwell Health, one of two hospital systems Intermountain caregivers supported during New York City’s surge earlier this year. These nurses will come in several flights of eight to 10 caregivers for two- to three-week assignments and will be assigned to work at Intermountain Medical Center. The group coming on Sunday consists of 10 nurses and one team lead.
“We’re excited to welcome our New York colleagues from Northwell,” says Heather Brace, Intermoutain’s senior vice president and chief people officer. “This is a great example of our people helping each other in times of need and putting our logos aside to support our patients and communities. The NY team will support our COVID units at IMC to allow our clinical staff to cross train and build skills.”
In announcing that New York healthcare workers are heading to Utah to assist our fight against COVID-19 in an address Thursday morning, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said, "That hospital system (Intermountain Healthcare) was very generous to New York when we needed help. We won't forget. We don't forget. We will do for them what they did for us."
Intermountain isn’t currently experiencing a surge of COVID hospitalizations, but leaders are continually monitoring, learning, and adjusting the organization to provide the absolute best care for our patients and communities. The purpose and timing of these teams of ICU nurses coming from Northwell is to support IMC’s ICU teams as they cross train with our thoracic ICU team to enhance our ability to provide extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) care for patients. The Northwell caregivers will assist in caring for COVID and non-COVID patients primarily in the ICUs at IMC.
Inviting Northwell caregivers to IMC allows our ICUs to treat both severe COVID and non-COVID patients—and, should we experience a surge in the future, we’ll have a more highly skilled team of ICU nurses to care for all our sickest patients.
“We’re grateful to the Northwell Health leadership team for sending us some of their highly trained ICU nurses who will be supporting us over the next several weeks,” Heather says. “We recognize and appreciate that they’re leaving their families and loved ones and we welcome them to Intermountain Healthcare and to Utah. We hope this is the first of many opportunities we’ll have to share staff when we each are in need.”
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