Ashtabula County Medical Center | ACMC Pulse | Winter 2020-21

2 ACMC Pulse • acmchealth.org Welcome IF WE TOOK A POLL, 2020 would be a year that many of us would like to forget. Our lives were turned upside down. Isolation from family and friends, remote work and school, face masks, canceled church services, and shuttered businesses are just a few of the challenges we’ve all been struggling with for over 10 months. We each felt the personal effects of COVID-19. The same was true for Ashtabula County Medical Center (ACMC). Our commitment is, and always has been, to provide high-quality care in the safest way possible. The challenge was keeping that commitment in the midst of a pandemic. I’m proud to say that our caregivers faced that challenge head-on and never wavered. Here are just a few of our safety measures: + Restricted visitors to the hospital and our provider offices; by limiting the number of people coming into our buildings, we reduced potential exposure to the virus. + Enhanced our already stringent cleaning and disinfecting protocols. + Created separation in our waiting and procedural areas to ensure social distancing. + Implemented telehealth visits with our providers so patients could be seen by their provider in the comfort and safety of their homes. + Performed temperature checks as a COVID-19 screening for everyone entering our buildings and screened patients for COVID-19 prior to surgery. + Required everyone who enters our buildings to wear a face mask. COVID-19 put our safety efforts in the spotlight, but we’ve been building a culture of safety for years. Our commitment to safety also extends beyond the walls of ACMC. We played a crucial role in helping several long-term care facilities respond to I am proud of our caregivers, who put themselves at risk— all in the name of helping our friends and neighbors. —Michael Habowski, President and CEO ACMC Healthcare System positive COVID-19 cases. We did this long before the governor created collaborations between regional hospitals and nursing homes to lessen the impact of the virus on that vulnerable population. Heartfelt messages of thanks I know I speak for all of our caregivers when I say thank you to the more than 125 businesses and individuals who donated food, cloth masks or other necessary supplies. A prayer service was organized to thank ACMC caregivers, banners were hung recognizing them as heroes, children wrote messages in chalk on the sidewalk, and dozens of heartfelt messages of thanks were written on the Thank You page on ACMC’s website. Having the support of our community means so much to us. Although COVID-19 has been the biggest story of 2020, it isn’t the only story. In this issue of Pulse , you’ll learn about our team model of care, new providers, signs and symptoms of stroke, and much more. I’ll close with a thank-you note we received at the height of our COVID-19 response: “I’m amazed at the number of smiles I still see from healthcare workers in our community. It is good to know that ACMC doctors, nurses and other staff are diligently adapting how they work to keep us safe. Every day seems like a new challenge, but it is good to see ACMC meeting those challenges head-on.” Keeping you and our caregivers safe