Penn State Health St. Joseph leadership sent the following message to St. Joseph employees on Monday:
We enter a new work week on a somber note with the recording of the first St. Joseph’s inpatient death associated with COVID-19. We offer our prayers to the patient’s family and our thanks to the staff who cared so professionally and selflessly for the patient.
We continue to work on our COVID response from a variety of angles, knowing that experts are indicating that a surge of patients could occur in very late April or early May. Whether that happens or not, we’ll see, but we have to plan for it.
To that end, we have been fine-tuning the St. Joseph surge plan, to coordinate with all the entities in Penn State Health and ensure that we are maximizing our joint capabilities as we have done successfully so far. We also have been working with the Berks County Department of Emergency Services and Reading Hospital/Tower Health on surge assessment for Berks County. We’ve also been in contact with county, state, and federal elected officials on our plans. We have analyzed all aspects of our hospital facilities to determine how we might bring more beds in more locations into service to handle a possible large influx of COVID inpatients. Another equally important component of our analysis has been assessing staffing and our ability to acquire the necessary supplies to care for patients and to keep staff safe.
Our surge plan is, by necessity, a detailed and thorough assessment. It requires us to ask hard questions and plan for worst-case scenarios. Such plans likely will be reported on by the news media, which has a tendency to focus on worst-case scenarios. That can scare some people. We intend to offer lots of context to the media with the hope of guiding reporters toward an even-handed presentation of our surge plans.
This week we will continue with the many things we’ve already put in place, including the drive-up testing on the Bern campus, which we expanded until 6:00 pm, Monday to Friday last week. We’ll continue the temperature checks at points of entry into our facilities, and we will ask that you continue to use supplies based on guidelines and needs. If the surge is yet to come, we’ll need every bit of what we have or can obtain to ensure you remain protected.
There is a Penn State Health Town Hall set for this Thursday at noon, and we are planning a St. Joe’s specific Town Hall for early next week.
In an effort to further support you, a “Grocery 2GO” program is being developed through Food Services. This will make it possible for you to order from a list of essential grocery items. As that program is finalized, we will share specific details on ordering and pickup.
With so much information being shared, we urge that you make time to read the Daily Brief that Penn State Health produces and distributes frequently. We’re working to put as much news as we can into the Daily. It also links to information that is important to performing your job, as well as contains policy and benefit information that you might need.
Finally, tomorrow we will distribute the chocolates, donated by Godiva Chocolatiers and secured by our Foundation. They will be delivered to St. Joseph inpatient, outpatient and Community Medical Group locations in Berks County. We’ll make every effort to get them to you. If you are missed for some reason, please let us know, and we’ll mobilize the Easter Bunny to make a special delivery.