Ohiohealth CEO: Take the delta variant seriously
Months after much of the country, and certainly people in Columbus, thought COVID was in the rearview mirror, business events have picked up in person again. But the fight is far from over, Ohiohealth CEO Steve Markovich said Wednesday.
During the Columbus Chamber’s first in-person gathering since COVID ushered in the era of the
virtual event, Dr. Markovich told an audience of about 40 people mostly in masks and sitting in chairs 6 feet apart in Franklin University’s Ross Auditorium that the delta variant is indeed something to worry about.
The morning event was timely: NBC4 anchor Colleen Marshall led the conversation with Markovich about his accomplishments — he is an Air Force fighter pilot who has done tours in Iraq, a twostar general and a medical doctor who worked in the emergency room for a decade — and about the incredible 18 months we have just lived through.
Markovich, with his military training, laid out the scenario for the group immediately. Cases of COVID-19 are at levels not seen since December 2020, when much of society remained shut down. This week, Ohiohealth had between 160 and 200 COVID patients in its hospitals, he said.
“All we got right now are masks, social distancing and the vaccine,” he said.
His mission? Keep patients alive and healthy, and that means keeping his team alive and healthy, he said. The workforce at Ohiohealth — and everywhere in health care, reports confirm — is exhausted. Care providers at the health system’s hospitals saw patient deaths spike 500 percent to 600 percent during the worst of the pandemic, Markovich said. People started to see their loved ones fall ill. And four Ohiohealth employees died from COVID.
What does Markovich, who earned an MBA from Wright State University while he was waiting around for his Air Force pilot training to commence, advise employers to do to support their teams?
“First, you got to have a great leadership team,” he says. “If you’re trying to get everybody engaged, you’ve got to have constant communication. You’ve got to lean on your frontline managers to work with your people.” When data being regularly collected by Ohiohealth showed the frontline leadership team was getting burned out, they were offered $250 extra per week to stay home and rest.
And to support staff, the organization created an employee resiliency team charged with making sure people were getting the care they needed to stay healthy.
As revenue plunged with elective surgeries canceled and people staying away from hospitals in general, associates were assured no one would be laid off. Bonuses were tripled. Funds from the government paid the bills, Markovich said.
This month, the health system joined
Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital in requiring employees to get COVID vaccinations. Mount Carmel Health System announced its requirement in July.
Isn’t that perceived as a bullying tactic by employers, Marshall asked Markovich?
“Every employer has to balance that against their workforce needs,” he said. “And I’ll tell you our story. We were watching the clinical numbers and when the curve shifted, that’s when I made the decision that we needed to change the rules around the health system and require employees to get vaccinated. And that’s kind of a misnomer— we’re treating it essentially the same way as the flu. You have to get immunized by Dec. 1, or you have to get tested every week. So it’s not a guarantee you’re fired.
“We don’t want to make this a judgmental situation or a punitive situation. There are a number of reasons people fail to vaccinate, their religious or cultural benefits. The goal is to do a better job of informing everyone, to get as many people as possible.
“The goal isn’t to say, if you’re not vaccinated, you lose your job. If we get to that situation where people are losing their jobs, we all lose.” ksmith@dispatch.com @katywatersmith