Weekly Updates: Week of Aug. 17
Child care help available for Penn State Health, College of Medicine employees
Managing child care responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic can be challenging. Penn State Health and the College of Medicine offer resources to help employees meet their needs.
Penn State Health
Penn State Health employees can find more information about child care resources and support at mySolutions.
Additional resources:
Penn State Health employees seeking assistance or more information on employee support resources and programs can contact the HR Solution Center at 717-531-8440 or hrsolutions@pennstatehealth.psu.edu.
Penn State College of Medicine
College of Medicine employee support resources and programs are available on the college website and the Penn State website for Family and Childcare Resources. Penn State Human Resources Services is available at 814-865-1473 or worklion.psu.edu.
Additional resources:
- hr.psu.edu/health-initiatives
- virusinfo.psu.edu/faq/topic/latest-updates#employee
- COVID-19 Infonet site
- COM COVID-19 Virus Site
Script offers guidance for conversations about wearing face masks
All staff, students, patients and family/support persons in all Penn State Health and College of Medicine facilities must help stop the spread of COVID-19 by wearing masks over their noses and mouths. Every day, however, we encounter people who either wear their masks improperly or choose not to wear one at all.
What should you say to them? To help, Patient Experience has developed suggested scripting. You can use it when talking to patients, visitors and employees about the importance of wearing a mask at Penn State Health and College of Medicine facilities.
Penn State Health’s COVID-19 numbers just one click away
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Penn State Health launched its online dashboard to provide numbers of confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients at Hershey Medical Center and St. Joseph Medical Center. While the Daily Brief stopped including weekly roundups of the numbers of COVID cases in June, the dashboard is still updated daily, Monday through Friday.
Since the public-facing web page went live in March, news media have reported on the health system’s numbers as well as the dashboard itself. Penn State Health led the way with our efforts to be fully transparent with our workforce and our communities, and inspired other regional health systems to follow suit. This important communications tool is just one click away for employees and the public.
Beyond the publicly accessible dashboard data, system leadership provides high-level COVID stats on patients as well as employees during regularly held and recorded town hall meetings. Promoted in the Daily Brief, these town halls are available to all employees to attend or watch later.
Hershey’s Aziz tapped to direct prominent regional vascular surgery group
Dr. Faisal Aziz, chief of the division of vascular surgery at Penn State Heart and Vascular Institute, will begin a three-year term as medical director for the Mid-Atlantic Vascular Study Group of the Vascular Quality Initiative this fall.
The initiative standardizes vascular care nationwide, with particular attention to reporting vascular surgery outcomes and designating star ratings to institutions. The study group aims to improve the quality, safety, effectiveness and cost of vascular health care by collecting and exchanging information. The group includes 64 academic hospitals, community hospitals and centers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland.
“Having Dr. Aziz serve as Mid-Atlantic Vascular Study Group medical director will help enhance outcomes for patients with vascular disease both here and at hospitals throughout our region,” said Dr. Larry Sinoway, Heart and Vascular Institute director.
Elected by his peers in the group to the medical director role, Aziz hopes to increase the number of hospitals in the national Vascular Quality Initiative registry and to ensure all Mid-Atlantic hospitals maintain the highest quality of patient care. His goal is to encourage institutions to maintain or improve their star ratings. Under his leadership, Penn State Health improved one-year follow-up for vascular surgery patients from 40% to more than 90% in four years.
Campomizzi named April DAISY Award winner
Maura Campomizzi, a nurse in the Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital, was selected as the April DAISY (Diseases Attacking the Immune System) Award winner.
This past year, Campomizzi made the holiday season extra special by turning the unit into a Winter Wonderland, her co-workers wrote in their letter nominating her. She reached out to friends, families and local businesses for donations — and even decorated on her day off. “Every window, door, desk and empty corner burst with holiday cheer,” they wrote.
Campomizzi set up mailboxes in the hallways so children could mail letters to Santa.
“Many people would have simply read the letters, had a good laugh and discarded them,” they wrote. “Not Maura. With permission from patients’ parents, Maura collected the letters meant for Santa and wrote the children back. Her contributions to both staff and patients are truly indispensable.”
Children’s Hospital shares back-to-school resources
As schools prepare to welcome students back to the classroom — whether in person, through distance learning or with a hybrid of the two — parents have concerns about their children’s safety and well-being.
Penn State Health Children’s Hospital offers back-to-school resources to help your children stay physically and emotionally healthy, no matter what form of schooling they have.
Book club focuses on systemic racism, health disparities
The Beryl Institute kicks off its virtual Patient Experience (PX) Book Club with a three-part series highlighting books that focus on systemic racism and health disparities on Wednesday, Aug. 26. Penn State Health employees can register for free as an organizational member of the institute.
All sessions take place from 5 to 6 p.m. on Wednesdays. They are:
- Aug. 26: “How to be an Antiracist,” Ibram X. Kendi
- Oct. 28 28: “Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine,” Dr. Damon Tweedy
- Dec. 16: “White Fragility,” Robin DiAngelo
The Beryl Institute is the global community of practice that works to improve the human experience in health care.
Lecture: ‘Medical Marijuana Use for Children with Autism’ Sept. 2
Dr. Jeanette Ramer, chief of the Division of Pediatric Developmental Medicine at the Children’s Hospital, will virtually present “Medical Marijuana Use for Children with Autism: Evidence and Experience” on Wednesday, Sept. 2, noon to 1:15 p.m.
The lecture is part of the Penn State Autism and Developmental Disorders Collaborative seminar series.
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