GREENFIELD — What’s a health-care provider to do when a new contagious disease starts spreading across the globe, constraining personal contact while leaving people overwhelmed with questions and concerns?
Take to the phones.
Since Hancock Regional Hospital’s COVID-19 hotline went live about a month ago, it has received more than 1,600 calls from people looking for support throughout the pandemic. A team made up of representatives from across the hospital’s departments mans the lines 24 hours a day, seven days a week helping callers navigate the novel coronavirus and the array of challenges it creates.
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Dr. Laura Rife, clinical innovation officer at Hancock Regional Hospital, said the organization’s leadership knew the public would have a lot of questions about COVID-19 because much of the medical staff did.
“Essentially we knew we needed to get ready for a good way to communicate,” she said.
Rife said she was asked in mid-March if she could set up a 24-hour COVID-19 hotline within 24 hours. With the help of her colleague, Matt Good, the hotline was up and running. The first ad for the new hotline ran March 14 in the Daily Reporter.
Nurses well-versed in talking to patients about symptoms work the hotline, but employees from other hospital departments have been trained as well, Rife said. That includes occupational therapists, wellness center employees, speech therapists, respiratory therapists, information technology employees, social workers and representatives of Healthy365, a hospital initiative promoting health, happiness and wholeness throughout Hancock County.
The hospital created a questionnaire for hotline workers to help direct callers toward the care they need, whether it’s the new COVID-19 triage clinic, emergency room or a virtual visit with a doctor, Rife said.
When asking questions, hotline workers keep their ears open for key words and phrases to make initial determinations on how ill a caller is, she continued. One of COVID-19’s symptoms is shortness of breath. When evaluating that symptom in callers, hotline workers ask questions like, “Can you stand at your sink doing dishes?” and “Can you count to 30 in one breath?”
The hospital is able to use the nature of the calls coming in to make preparations for its COVID-19 response as well, Rife said.
“We’re able to put our fingers on the pulse of the community of those people calling in,” she said.
Rife added either a doctor or a registered nurse is always on hand in the hotline’s central location to answer more medically complex questions.
The hotline had received 1,680 calls by Friday afternoon, April 17, Rife said, for a total of 165 hours, 39 minutes of talk time.
Data collected on the hotline shows phone calls remain consistent and that the busiest week so far was last week, during a surge in COVID-19 cases throughout the state, she continued.
Peak hours tend to span between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., and Mondays and Wednesdays appear to be the hotline’s busiest days, Rife said. Weekends are a little slower. She thinks Mondays may be busy because people are looking to figure out new COVID-19 developments that occurred over the weekends.
Up to six workers man the hotline during peak times, Rife said, and as few as two do during slower times.
The average call time has been about five minutes, she continued, adding workers are getting to calls by the second or third ring during peak times.
When the hotline first started, most callers asked where they could get tested and learned about the nationwide shortage of tests along with the conditions under which people are tested, Rife said.
Most people who get COVID-19 have mild to no symptoms and don’t need to be hospitalized. But the virus they carry remains contagious, and therefore dangerous to populations more at risk like older adults and those with underlying health conditions. That’s why hotline workers refer many callers to set up virtual appointments with physicians, Rife said.
The hotline also has been referring callers to the hospital’s COVID-19 triage clinic just about every day, she continued, adding the most referrals in a single day was 10. That may not seem like a lot, Rife said, but the hospital is very careful about who it refers due to the risk of exposure and spread along with the limited personal protective equipment available to medical professionals.
“There’s a lot of risk that comes with that,” Rife said.
Some referrals from the hotline to the triage clinic have resulted in positive COVID-19 tests, Rife also said.
Craig Felty, vice president, chief nursing officer and chief operating officer of Hancock Regional Hospital, said the triage clinic had seen more than 1,000 patients as of last week.
“It’s definitely been trending down,” he continued, adding the clinic used to see about 20 to 30 patients a day and last week saw fewer than 10 a day.
Rife recalled one of the nurses working the hotline initially being dismayed about her assignment, thinking her talents would be far better used at patients’ bedsides. It didn’t take the nurse long to realize just how many people she was helping over the phone, however, Rife continued.
Sometimes a call turns a hotline worker into a bit of an emergency dispatcher when they determine the caller needs to get to the emergency room, Rife said. Other times, hotline workers help with a caller’s anxiety by encouraging them to do things like limit how much pandemic-related news they consume.
“You can get wrapped up in fear and become dysfunctional,” Rife said. “We are here 24/7, and that means we can talk to you at 3 in the morning if you need to.”
The hotline team’s diversity has allowed callers to receive help on not only medical issues, but tracking down resources that have become scarce during the pandemic as well. Rife said hotline workers have helped secure thermometers for callers who were told to watch themselves for a fever, one of COVID-19’s symptoms. Hotline workers have done the same for fever suppressants like Tylenol, she continued.
“It’s been a great way to learn about your organization the hard way,” she said. “…It has forced us to innovate very quickly.”
Rife thinks by the time the pandemic is over, health care will have changed for the better, and those who served on Hancock Regional Hospital’s COVID-19 hotline will be one example of that progress.
“We will definitely be changed as a result of working through this crisis together as a community,” she said.
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How to get more information or seek help:
317-325-COVD (2683)
hancockregionalhospital.org/coronavirus
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