Chesco braces for impact on health care workers

With the health care industry projecting that pandemicinduced PTSD and other psychological impacts are the next health crisis, human resource professionals are preparing for COVID-19 impacts on local workers across industries, including those in health care.

One of the key directives from Gov. Tom Wolf was to establish Pennsylvania as a trauma-informed state to better respond to the needs of people who have had adverse childhood or other serious, traumatic experiences.

Registration is open now for the virtual conference being held

Wednesday, April 21, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., by the Chester County Economic Development Council and its Health Care Connect initiative at https://hccspringforum2021.eventbrite.com.

“What can employers do to support health care and non-health care employees now and in the wake of COVID-19? What issues can they expect to face – and for how long? Why is Pennsylvania becoming a ‘trauma informed state’ and what does that mean for employers, workers and other residents? These are among the issues we’ll be addressing, along with the latest on vaccine distribution and its impacts,” says Dr. Claire Mooney, chairwoman of Health Care Connect and President and CEO of Jennersville and Brandywine Hospitals/Tower Health.

Representing Pennsylvania will be Dan Jurman, executive director of Pennsylvania’s Office of Advocacy and Reform, an office Gov. Wolf created in 2019 to benefit and protect vulnerable populations through reforms to policy and practice. Among those efforts is the plan for a “Trauma-Informed PA,” announced in 2020 as an effort to heal the Commonwealth’s population from ongoing trauma and chronic stress.

Jurman will address a wide range of issues, including what all employers can expect to see as impacts; what all employers should know as Pennsylvania moves through the process of becoming a trauma-informed state; where Pennsylvania is now in the effort almost a year after its announcement; how it will be applied to state agencies’ policies and practices as well as to health care providers and employers across industries.

“Everyone who has experienced COVID-19 on any level — from having to stay home from work or school, not being able to see friends and family members, losing a friend or relative to the virus — has experienced chronic stress and/ or trauma,” says Jurman. “Health care workers experienced unfathomable challenges due to patient sickness and loss, concerns for family members, PPE challenges, uncertainties on the duration of the pandemic and ever-evolving protocols. This is resulting in frontline fatigue, moral distress, PTSD and other levels of trauma.”

The issue of frontline fatigue will be addressed in depth by Bill Belmonte, emergency department nurse manager at Paoli Hospital/Main Line Health, Chester County’s only certified trauma center.

How to combat fatigue, treat it along with an examination of moral distress and PTSD that health care workers and administrators are experiencing during COVID-19 will also be reviewed by Karen Oxler, former deputy surgeon general of Navy Medicine and currently the executive director at Philadelphia’s VA, the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center.

Registration is available now for “COVID-19 Impacts on Healthcare Workers and PA as a Trauma-Informed State,” a presentation of the Chester County Economic Development Council and its Health Care Connect initiative, at https://healthcareconnect.ccedcpa.com/event/frontline-fatigue-paa-trauma-informed-state/

Health Care Connect, an initiative of the Chester County Economic Development Council, advocates for the advancement of the health care industry through training, outreach and other industry strategies.

The Chester County Economic Development Council is a private, non-profit economic development organization promoting smart growth in Chester County and the surrounding region for more than 60 years.