Chicago-based Advocate Trinity Hospital has suffered through seemingly relentless crises since the start of the pandemic, much like many other hospitals. As the omicron surge subsides, it is trying to find a way forward, The Atlantic reported Feb. 2.
The omicron wave meant some patients in the emergency department waited for 40 hours to be seen. Between exhausted staff, treating patients in ambulances for lack of space and using the waiting room as a care room, Advocate Trinity was pushed to the brink.
A third of the patients at Advocate Trinity are uninsured or are on Medicaid, and the hospital is one of the few remaining serving the South Side of Chicago, according to The Atlantic. Now with what looks like the worst of the omicron wave over, the hospital is less busy.
"We see the light at the end of the tunnel," Gwendolyn Oglesby-Odom, EdD, MSN, RN, the chief nursing officer of Advocate Trinity, told The Atlantic.
Worried about staffing concerns, the hospital is offering retention bonuses to staff that stay on. As a less financially endowed hospital, it also struggles to recruit nurses and physicians, so it has begun hiring licensed practical nurses for the first time and assigning patients to groups of nurses.
However, many staff are staying on at the hospital, with over a third of staff residing in the community it serves. With community health in mind, the hospital is leading a group effort to place physicians and primary care providers throughout the South Side of Chicago to focus on preventive health.
Dr. Oglesby-Odom told The Atlantic the hospital and its staff plan "to go outside the four walls of the hospital and wrap our arms around the community."