Study Launched To Specifically Look At Health Care Workers On Front Lines And Their Increased Risk

Modern Healthcare: Rutgers Studying Healthcare Workers Exposed To COVID-19
Rutgers University hopes to better understand and treat COVID-19 with the largest study of of healthcare workers who have been exposed to the virus. The study includes more than 800 employees of Rutgers University, University Hospital in Newark and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., who will be tracked for six months. The goal is to determine how many of Rutgers’ 7,000 healthcare employees might get infected by the 800 exposed. (Johnson, 4/21)

Kaiser Health News: Lost On The Frontline
For Jhoanna Mariel Buendia, her aunt was a constant ― if distant — presence. Araceli Buendia Ilagan emigrated from their hometown Baguio, in the Philippines, to the U.S. before Buendia was born, but she remained close to her family and communicated with them nearly every day. “She was one of the smartest people I ever knew,” Buendia, 27, said. Buendia Ilagan, who at one point looked into adopting her niece so she could join her and her husband the United States, encouraged Buendia to become a nurse, and talked her through grueling coursework in anatomy and physiology. Buendia is now a nurse in London. (4/22)

‘Lost On The Frontline’: Know of a health-care worker who died of COVID-19? KHN and The Guardian are documenting the lives of U.S. workers who succumbed during the crisis. These are the front-line health workers who risk their lives to care for the sick and keep our facilities running. Please share their stories here.

The Associated Press: ER Staff Saves Lives, Suffers In Hot Spot
A nurse furiously pushes down on a man’s chest as five other staff in full protective gear surround the patient’s bed. Suddenly, one throws up his arms and steps backward. “OK, move! Everybody move!” are the instructions. Moments after they back away, the patient’s heart is shocked, his arm spasms and he shakes on the bed. Soon after, he is placed on a ventilator. He has been saved — for now. (Mahoney and Minchillo, 4/22)

Boston Globe: Catholic Hospital Won’t Guarantee ICU Nurse A Respite From Work With Coronavirus Patients 
The unknown effects of the novel coronavirus are worrisome for all but particularly agonizing for pregnant women, who fear the ravages of a severe respiratory illness could harm the development of their fetuses. But those same uncertainties are being cited by some employers as a reason to maintain the status quo in the workplace. While some hospitals — including Baystate Medical Center in Springfield and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston — are giving pregnant health care workers the option of temporarily changing job responsibilities, Mercy Medical Center has made no such guarantees. (Ebbert, 4/21)

Bangor Daily News: Maine Adds Phone Support Line For COVID-19’s Frontline Workers 
A group of state and nonprofit agencies Tuesday launched a new phone support service to provide emotional support to health care workers and first responders who are working on the frontlines responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Called the FrontLine WarmLine, the phone support service was launched to help Maine health care professionals and first responders deal with stress and anxiety related to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. (Pendharkar, 4/21)

Stateline: Many Health Providers On Brink Of Insolvency 
While hospitals strain to treat the surge of acutely ill COVID-19 patients, the crisis threatens the stability of the rest of the health care system. Elective surgeries and routine medical care are on hold. As a result, medical providers of all kinds are seeing drastic reductions in patient visits and crushing losses of revenue. At the same time, some continue to pay wages along with rent and other overhead costs. Many worry they’ll lose their skilled workers to hospitals. The combination raises the possibility that the non-hospital health system will be decimated, and many of the surviving providers will be ill-prepared to deal with the pent-up demand that emerges from this crisis. (Vestal and Ollove, 4/22)

Kaiser Health News: In The Middle Of The Country, A Hospital And Its Community Prepare For The Surge
Megan Kampling and her husband were only a few days into a spring break trip with their children when Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly shut down schools in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. “We both just looked at each other and said, ‘What are we going to do?’” Kampling recalled. She works in the pharmacy department at Ascension Via Christi hospitals in Wichita and her husband is an officer with the Wichita Police Department, making them both essential workers who could not work remotely. (West, 4/22)