Nursing Assistant Team Receives VIP Award for Team Innovation
Big News for the Nursing Assistant Team!
The Bellin College Nursing Assistant Team, consisting of Kelsey Zastrow, Ann Kasarsky, Mary Pfantz, and Amanda Super received the 2022 Bellin VIP Award for Team Innovation! The team was nominated by Laura Hieb and Anna Hale and are invited to the annual VIP event at Lambeau Feild set for June 29th, 2023!
Below is an excerpt from Laura Heib’s nomination form:
“During the height of the COVID surge in the end of 2021 and the first part of 2022, Bellin Health was challenged with discharging Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) patients out of our existing Acute Care environment into the local nursing homes. The hospital was averaging 120-130% capacity and turning away nearly 320 patient transfers a month due to lack of internal bed availability. A large contributor to this issue was the lack of available beds in the local Skilled Nursing Facilities to move our patients out into after discharge. Due to lack of staff and COVID outbreaks, local skilled nursing facilities were frequently closed to admissions. Chris Hohol, the Regional Emergency Preparedness Director, ask(ed) if we would be interested in an opportunity. The preparedness team was willing to work with the National Guard to train up some guardsmen to become CNA’s. Bellin went from idea to implementation in 10 days. The intent of the National Guard was that they would bring in service men and/or women, we would train them to be CNA’s, and then they would deploy to local nursing homes to assist in staffing. We (Bellin Health) partnered with the (Bellin) college and the internal Bellin team to assure that we could get the 75 hours of required training under the DHS Emergency Training Program. The team did a test of change with a 2 day boot camp followed by on-site training at Odd Fellow Nursing home. (Nursing Assistant) Faculty, from the (Bellin) college shadowed the guardsman and Odd Fellow worked on creating a “buddy system” with existing Odd Fellow staff. We completed the training of the first 10 guardsmen and then the subsequent additional 4 guardsmen. Collaboration with Bellin College, Odd Fellows, the National Guard and our internal Bellin team created a team that was able to impact and move through an additional 79 patients in a few short weeks, freeing capacity at the Bellin main campus. Bellin College is highly adaptable in taking their training out to Odd Fellow’s and making adjustments on the fly.”
We are so lucky to have such an amazing Nursing Assistant team here at Bellin College. Congratulations to all!
