Penn State Health CEO Steve Massini and College of Medicine Interim Dean Kevin Black on Wednesday sent the following email to employees across the health system and college:
The past few days have brought unprecedented challenges as we work together to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to prepare for patients who contract this virus. Many of you are dealing with complex situations at work and home, and we are humbled at how you have remained focused on ensuring the safety and well-being of our workforce, students, patients, and community.
As of now, Penn State Health has no known patients with COVID-19. This could change at any time. Even so, we are prepared. Five years ago – long before COVID-19 upended our lives – Milton S. Hershey Medical Center was designated as one of Pennsylvania’s four Ebola treatment centers. As such, our health system already had a significant amount of shared knowledge, training, supplies and dedicated space to care for patients with infectious illnesses including COVID-19. Additionally, a highly-trained, interdisciplinary team of health professionals has been closely monitoring the situation since the initial outbreak, assessing our supplies, and talking with state and federal authorities.
At our first COVID-19 town hall last week, one of you asked a great question: “What’s the difference between preparing for influenza season versus preparing for COVID-19?” The short answer is, COVID-19 is new. Scientists are still trying to understand it, and currently there is no vaccine or treatment. We can predict hospitalizations and mortality from the flu because we know so much about it but with COVID-19, we have much yet to learn. There’s no need to panic, but we do need to err on the side of safety, which is why our organization, our nation and our world are responding with vigilance.
We apologize that we ran out of slots on Zoom at our second town hall earlier this week, and for those who did participate, we ran out of time to answer all of your questions. That town hall was recorded and you can view it here. We are planning town halls every week for the foreseeable future, and have significantly increased capacity for participation.
We encourage you to visit our COVID-19 Infonet page where you will find information about the virus and how we are responding to it, including our interim travel and work-from-home policies. For College of Medicine faculty, staff and students, we also created this page that contains information more specific to you. This is an evolving situation and our policies and guidelines are evolving as well. When you have a question, please check those webpages and if you can’t find the answer, talk with your supervisor. Additionally, you can submit questions to askaCOVIDq@pennstatehealth.psu.edu.
Our Penn State family has demonstrated extraordinary strength, respect, resilience and understanding as we address the challenges across our health system and college. And, we will continue to do that until COVID-19 is no longer a part of our daily vocabulary.
We are a university health system – and an excellent one at that. The people of our community look to us to provide leadership and care during times of personal and collective uncertainty. Thanks to the hard work and preparation of so many of you, we are confident we are ready to do just that.
Steve Massini Dr. Kevin Black
CEO Interim Dean
Penn State Health Penn State College of Medicine