Promoting Resilience During a Marathon: Q & A with Novant Health’s Vaccaro

Health care organizations have learned much about promoting and supporting resilience during the pandemic. Michael Vaccaro, MHA/MBA, RN, is senior vice president for acute care nursing at Novant Health, a health care system with 15 hospitals based in Winston-Salem, N.C. AONL talked with Vaccaro to learn more about the practices his organization developed—encompassing financial, technological and emotional support—during this difficult time.

AONL: Inpatient nurses often care for critically ill patients. What made the pandemic different in the ways it caused fatigue and burnout?

MV: Although our organization had done work on resiliency and well-being, a number of factors were at play that intensified stress and burnout. The number of patient deaths that we saw, especially in the beginning, was unusual. There were days when our intensive care unit (ICU) nurses experienced as many as six patient deaths in one day. The sheer burden of additional personal protective equipment (PPE) was huge. Donning and doffing all shift long is exhausting.

Another factor was the pace of change. A lot of information was coming out, not just from Novant Health, but also from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government agencies. In addition, nurses were worried about their own health and were asking these questions: What do we know about COVID-19? What’s happening at home with my loved ones? Is my spouse out of work now as a result of the pandemic? Are my kids going to be in school or having school at home? How do I care for them? There was uncertainty about what was going to happen.

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