Angela Coladonato, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, is senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Chester County Hospital Penn Medicine. She has 35-plus years of health care administration experience, and has held her current position for nearly 15 years--maintaining a focus on excellent patient care, clinical program development and nursing emotional intelligence.
This local leader received the Medallion for Excellence in the Administration of Health Care Services from Villanova University College of Nursing in 2017. West Chester Lifestyle was privileged to discuss with Angela what it's been like for her 960 nursing staff to battle one of the worst-ever, most emotionally anguishing health crises.
What skills/traits enabled CCH nurses to rise to handling such a life-threatening, coronavirus pandemic situation?
We're proud to be one of only 552 (American Nurses Credentialing Center) U.S. Magnet-designated organizations. In Magnet organizations, nurses have strong voices in decision-making, and CCH nurses had that voice throughout this pandemic. The nurses’ feedback improved our processes.
CCH employees execute the hospital's iCARE values (innovation, collaboration, accountability, respect and excellence) in all they do for patients and the community. These values couldn’t have been exhibited more strongly as we dealt with the pandemic.
Please describe roles that nurses served during the pandemic.
At the beginning, there was fear among frontline staff. Nurses were the one caregiver who had to be in rooms with COVID-19 patients and to assume many support departments’ roles--dietary, housekeeping and lab. Additionally, nurses helped in the COVID testing center, virtual visiting platform, and in the vaccine clinic. Nurses helped with Penn Medicine’s call center to field calls from patients about COVID, and with getting patients tested, too.
Angela, you’ve a reputation as a strong leader known for your integrity. What did you do differently to model behavior/mindsets during this unusual last year?
As the CNO, I felt a lot of responsibility for employees' well-being and safety at the hospital, and trying to make what they do every day as painless as possible, given both internal and external pressures.
I was visible, with a goal to be an empathetic leader to dial into employees’ needs and adjust tactics to make improvements while being calm, patient and attentive. I'm truly interested in hearing how staff feel and what they’ve experienced during the pandemic.
I focus on emotional intelligence, ensuring my emotions don't hijack my behavior during difficult times. Both myself and the entire hospital leadership team feel strongly that transparent, truthful communication was extremely important, as guidance from the CDC and other regulatory organization changed frequently.
What adjustments did you all make being on the frontline of such relentless schedules?
I'm not going to sugarcoat that it's been a tough year, especially for frontline staff. Patients and families were removed from each other and nurses had to deal with that anxiety and stress; with CCH being part of Penn Medicine, there were several online support options for employees to help with that. It's always important that nurses get a break from patient care areas to decompress. It also was so hard wearing all the PPE they needed.
Did CCH emergency preparedness plans prepare staffers for this pandemic?
We have a very detailed, CCH emergency preparedness plan and do drills frequently. Throughout, that plan added structure for coordinating communications, resources, assets, safety, security, staffing, utilities and clinical activities.
How do nurses protect themselves from mental tolls caused by COVID-19?
Lines of communication were open. We sent out many e-mails, held town hall meetings every week, and had daily COVID calls to relay changes. The nurses on COVID units did feel isolated, and they were fearful for their families when they went home. At that time, there was no vaccine to help protect them. We tried as best we could to carry on business as usual.
Nurses Week is always May 6-12, but we--as well as all of Penn Medicine--had to postpone that in 2020. We did celebrate Nurses Week in September the best we could due to social distancing restrictions. Interestingly, 2020 was coined the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, and that turned out to be extremely appropriate for 2020.
How has staff continued to maintain care needs for COVID-19 patients?
We're doing well because we have an amazing team of health care professionals who work together for the same goal: excellent patient care. We do have the supplies and resources we need.
What are you most proud of regarding CCH nurses?
It's a privilege and an honor for me to work with such a professional, engaged, resilient and exceptional team of nurses, as well as all of the health care team.
What examples of local community support would you like to highlight?
The community was amazing with truckloads of PPE donated, food that was supplied, masks that were sewn. School children wrote beautiful cards and drew pictures of our health care heroes and sent them to the hospital.
What are the biggest challenges you're facing during 2021?
Recovery from a very difficult year, both emotionally and financially. COVID-19 isn't completely going away, and how do we manage that as we get back to some semblance of normalcy? Dealing with the moral distress that was left behind from the pandemic. Try to avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems. We can’t change that highly stressful things happen, but we can change how we respond to these events and try to look to a better future.