All hands on deck to help with staffing shortages at Children’s Minnesota

The omicron variant of COVID-19 has pushed local hospitals to the brink.

Children’s Minnesota CEO Dr. Marc Gorelick said omicron is making more kids sick. In addition, more clinical staff are getting sick or having to stay home to care for loved ones.

“People are tired” Gorelick said. “Our staff have been working so hard.”

Registered nurses Jacyln Feist and Colleen Woods work in the emergency department on the Minneapolis campus. It’s the only Level 1 trauma center in the state exclusively for kids.

“You walk into work and that stoplight is red because you have over the two-hour waits,” Feist said. “Because there’s not enough rooms in any ER, whether it’s ours here or anywhere in the Twin Cities. There’s just not enough space. There’s not enough staff to take care of the influx of kids that are coming in on a daily basis.”

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Woods added, “When it gets busy, there’s significantly more patients to see, more patients you’re managing, more procedures happening.”

When it comes to staffing shortages, it’s an even bigger problem at pediatric hospitals like Children’s Minnesota because it takes more people to take care of the patients.

“Many things require two people for kids that would only require one for an adult,” Gorelick said. “Drawing blood, putting in an IV, those are often things that require two staff members to do.”

Laurin Cathey, vice president of human resources for Children’s Minnesota, says they’ve hired more people but the problem is they can’t keep up with the number of employees out because of COVID.

“We are probably lower right now than we have ever been in terms of staffing,” Cathey said.

The solution Children’s Minnesota came up with might be surprising.

“And we thought we have a lot of people in this organization, executives and others who have important but nonclinical roles” said Gorelick. “And they’ve been asking, ‘What can we do to help?'”

“You know, cleaning rooms, doing some of those non clinical things that can let them focus on patient care,” Cathey said. “That was the motivation for us.”

These days you’ll find Children’s Minnesota executives and people who work in IT, finance and other departments volunteering on their days off or after regular work shifts.

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Feist couldn’t believe it the first time she saw somebody from the executive team cleaning rooms doing odd jobs. “I though, ah, who are you? What?”

“And they partner with us and our charge nurse throughout the day,” Woods said. “As the day shifts and changes their duties can shift and change and they roll with the punches.”

Children’s Minnesota Chief Nursing Officer Caroline Njau is one of the trained volunteers.

“I signed up to help them because I know that they have an influx of patients, and especially with Covid going around staffing is variable,” Njau said. “And so I want to make sure that we can get what we need to get done for the sake of our patients.”

To date, Children’s Minnesota has had at least 105 employee volunteers who have covered 484 shifts in the Minneapolis and St. Paul emergency departments and inpatient units and eight primary care clinics throughout the metro. More employees are signing up for volunteer shifts all the time.

“You never know what it’s like to spend time in another person’s shoes,” Cathey said. “Just the resiliency of our staff. The commitment in which they bring to work every day. And I’ve learned that we’ve got a very innovative team. They’re resilient and, once again, that passion comes through. Even when we’re short-staffed, the quality of care doesn’t stop.”

“We’re all one team, we’re one Children’s Minnesota,” Njau said. “Any of our roles can step in and help because we’re here for our mission and our patients.”

And that means the world to parents who want to make sure their sick kids get healthy.