b'CONCORD HOSPITAL ANNUAL REPORT | COVID\x1c19 RESPONSE 9Nursing at the Center of CareConcord Hospital nurses helped lead the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, calling on their healthcare and emergency skills to adapt to rapidly changing challenges and manage a medical and emotional landscape they had never imagined.Many of the Hospitals nearly 900 nurses expanded or refocused their duties to care for COVID-19 patients. Some moved from their customary duties to other areas of the organization that needed reinforcement, completing intensive training to change roles. They balanced their own anxiety during uncertain times to help patients overcome their fears. Some found themselves holding patients handswhen family members could not.We had to rapidly shift our care models, said Erin Collins, the organizations Vice President of Nursing. We had to move nurses to where the patients were being cared for such as the Emergency Department, Intensive Care Unit and The Family Place. Emergencies and labor and delivery did not stop.Nurses also stepped up in Concord Hospital Medical Group practices to screen potential COVID-19 patients and continue to provide careoften by telephone or video linkto thousands of others. Ambulatory nurses played a valuable role at the Neighborhood Emergency Health Centers (NEHC) and the COVID testing tent sites by supporting screening for patients with COVID-19 symptoms and assessment for those not needing to be hospitalized. The adaptation, the level of \x1fexibility, the agility of our team members was so impressive, Collins said. They had a deep motivation to respond, to help, to serve as best as they could.Nursing management of the pandemic and of personnel also changed. As they deployed Erin Collins, RN, BSN nurses to care safely for patients, nursing leaders also were mindful of sacri\x1dces being made by nurses and other healthcare providers and the need to limit their exposure to VICE PRESIDENT OF NURSING the virus to minimize the risk to themselves and their families.Many of the changes came when almost everything about the virus still was a mystery. Sta\x1e wondered if customary Personal Protective Equipment would work, would facemasks be safe enough, did sta\x1e need more, how long could they safely stay at a patients bedside? Caring for people and balancing their own personal life, Im sure weighed very heavily on individuals, said Collins.She said the organization continues to face the pandemic as a team that includes everyone who works there. And, nurses, she said, are guided by their callingto care for patients.Ensuring teams had what they needed to put patients needs \x1drst, whether this is a highly infectious virus or not, we could not lose our focus on the fact that our community needed us to stay on point, Collins said. No one took their eye o\x1e of putting the needs of the patient \x1drst, even those not impacted by the virus.'