April 23 - COVID-19 Daily Update

Celebrating Lab Week

In a “normal” year, the teams in the labs work tirelessly to ensure accuracy in testing, so physicians have the best information for creating personalized treatment plans for each patient. But when you have a year like 2020-2021, nothing is normal.

For the last year, the teams in the labs throughout Beaumont Health:

• developed eight tests to support COVID-19 diagnosis
• developed three serology assays to measure the antibody responses induced by SARS-CoV-2 past infections
• performed 19,000 specimen collections and organized four collection sites for patients in the COVID-19 clinical study
• performed 376,975 COVID-19 diagnostic tests

With 1,700 team members, the services the Laboratory offers touches nearly every area of the organization. This week, the Lab celebrated National Medical Laboratory Providers Week. Recognizing the hard work and dedication of each team member shines the spotlight on the skill, talent and knowledge of the Laboratory as a collective.

“We are proud of every member of the Laboratory team,” said Sarah Britton, vice president, Laboratory Services. “Most of the time, the Lab team is in the background, playing a critical supporting role to extraordinary patient care. But I hope each Lab employee takes a few minutes to step into the limelight and reflect on all we’ve accomplished over the past year, and how it makes us stronger as an organization. Thank you to everyone!”

 

Volunteer Week: Looking to the future with students

Julius Caesar said, “Experience is the teacher of all things.” That is why, at Beaumont Health, volunteers run the spectrum from teenager to seasoned adult. 

For students, it is not uncommon for them to dream of going into the medical field, or to simply want to give back to the community.

Akshay Vasudevan was inspired to give back and become a volunteer at Beaumont because of his upbringing.

“From a young age, I have done all I could to assist people. From helping my grandparents to aiding my parents by doing chores around the house, I always look for any opportunity to be helpful,” Akshay said.

By the time he reached high school, he was ready to find new ways to contribute. “As I grew older, I wanted to give back to the community, and this desire is what drove me to begin volunteering at Beaumont, Farmington Hills,” he explained.

Spending time helping patients provides young adults with valuable insight into the daily happenings of a health care facility.

“In the past, I have volunteered at the front desk where I would help in wayfinding and, more recently, by taking temperatures and asking questions related to COVID-19,” Akshay said.

A shift at Beaumont will often teach students skills that a textbook could not, from technical experiences to valuable interpersonal interactions.

Akshay can attest to this. “During this time, I had the opportunity to talk with patients about their experiences, which I found intriguing.” Watching physicians work and treat patients while volunteering at Beaumont has affirmed my decision to pursue medicine,” Akshay said. 

Akshay’s experience as a volunteer with Beaumont inspired him to follow his dreams. 

 

Mobile Heartbeat downtime on April 28 affects all users

Mobile Heartbeat, including all nurse call and telemetry alerts/alarms on shared devices, will be unavailable on Wednesday, April 28, from 7-8:30 a.m., while a system update occurs. 

To plan in advance, please review established downtime procedures while connected to the Beaumont network and use during this time frame. Pay careful attention to overhead pages for any urgent alerts during the downtime. Nursing units will need to staff main desks to monitor nurse call alarms and answer calls from CTMU. 

As part of the update, the inactivity timeout within the app that requires a 4-digit PIN after 2 minutes of no activity will be increased to 15 minutes. 

If you have any questions or issues, please contact the Service Desk at 888-481-2448 or via the web. 

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course is coming this spring

Join the Beaumont Center for Mindfulness for an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course this spring. Scientific studies show MBSR offers stress reduction, improvement in medical symptoms and burnout, support in changing negative habits, better ability to manage depression and anxiety and improved self-care. As an offer of appreciation for our health care team members, this opportunity is available at a preferred price of $60 for Beaumont team members and their adult family members. Live, in-person (outdoor) and virtual evening sessions available. This course is approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit, Nursing CE and Social Work CE. Register by Monday, May 10; space is limited! Visit beaumont.org/mindfulness to learn more and register or view the promotional flyer.