Please read the information below carefully. You may have action to take prior to Sept. 24, specific to your vaccination status.

Throughout the pandemic, Safety First, People Always has remained at the forefront of everything we do. Even during the most uncertain of times, we remain steadfast in our commitment to follow the expertise of our clinicians, keeping our people and patients safe and healthy, while remaining compliant with guidance and regulations from our federal and local governments.

Earlier this month, Colorado’s Board of Health implemented rules requiring licensed health care facilities to mandate their personnel – including employees, direct contractors and support staff – to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Effective immediately, the new emergency rule states that all health care workers, support staff and direct contractors must receive their first COVID-19 dose by Sept. 30, and their second dose no later than Oct. 31.

To comply with these regulations, we have activated our COVID-19 Vaccination policy that applies to our 21,000 incredible caregivers, physicians, students, volunteers, contractors and Community Board members across our entire health system (including our ministries in western Kansas). Our leaders developed this policy using recommendations and guidance from our clinical experts and it focuses on Centura’s priority to address your personal health and safety and/or your potential need for an exemption. We value each of our incredible caregivers, and do not want a single caregiver to leave our healing ministry and our beloved place of work!

Please read our policy carefully, note the additional information below, and consider joining one of our many town halls to learn more. Dr. Ozzie Grenardo, SVP and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer and Maria Kneusel, DNP, RN, will host a series of town halls in Spanish and English. Click here to learn how you can join this conversation.

Proof of Vaccination

• If you are employed by Centura Health and completed your COVID-19 vaccine series at one of our Centura vaccine clinics, your information is on file and no further action is needed.
• If you are employed by Centura Health and completed your COVID-19 vaccine series outside of one of our Centura vaccine clinics (including a mass vaccination event or a non-Centura location) AND have not already submitted your information to Occupational Health, please send an email with your first name, last name, physical address and associate ID to COVID-19OH@Centura.org by Sept. 24. Occupational Health will verify your vaccination status with the Colorado state immunization registry (CIIS) and Kansas COVID-19 state registry. If you were vaccinated outside of the states of Colorado and Kansas, please submit your proof of vaccination.
• If you are a credentialed provider, contractor, volunteer, student or Community Board member and have completed your vaccine series, please send an email with your first name, last name, physical address, and proof of vaccination to COVID-19OH@Centura.org by Sept. 24.
• New vaccination! If you are ready to get your COVID-19 vaccine, scheduling an appointment is very easy. Simply visit Centura.org/vaccine-scheduling and schedule online today by the deadline of Sept. 24 for your first dose. You may also choose to get your COVID-19 vaccine at any non-Centura Health location. Follow the above steps to share proof of vaccination with Centura Health.
  

If you’re interested in participating in Policy Bowl to help us streamline our clinical patient care policies across the system, please share your interest with your leader as soon possible. Policy Bowl participants will be selected from across the system to ensure representation from all Centura hospitals and diverse clinical departments and specialties.

We have heard feedback shared in our associate and physician engagement surveys and from our nursing teams in Focus on Action sessions across the enterprise, and we recognize how challenging it can be to locate and access the clinical patient care policies you need in our current system.

On Oct 25-28, we will be holding a Policy Bowl – a fun football themed event designed to be an all-out blitz on the cumbersome processes, conflicting procedures and duplicative clinical policies currently housed in PolicyTech.

The game plan: Representatives from every Centura hospital will come together to review the more than 4,000 acute care policies in existence across Centura Health. Teams of frontline caregivers and subject matter experts will then work together to consolidate and standardize clinical patient care policies and streamline the policy search and reference process.

The game winning goal: Enable our incredible teammates to find the document they need, right when they need it and ensure all clinical patient care policies are aligned across the system and reflect current best practices and regulations. Ultimately, the team of policy-makers quarterbacking this effort hope to reduce the total number of clinical patient care policies by 85% by the end of FY22.

Policy Bowl will include representation from every Centura Health hospital, and participants will be selected to ensure we also have representation from across our service lines and clinical specialties. If you are interested in participating, please share your interest with your leader.

Our work to simplify and streamline our clinical care policies is important, and our Policy Bowl event will take place in October regardless of whether we are able to convene in person or need to adopt a virtual or hybrid format. While we are all eager to reconnect with each other in person, we must continue to lean into our commitment of Safety First, People Always and keep the health and safety of our people and communities at the forefront of everything we do. We will continue to monitor COVID-19 transmission in our communities and associate populations and will keep Policy Bowl participants informed of logistical details, including COVID-19 precautions, as the event approaches.

Questions?
If you’re interested or have questions about participating in Policy Bowl, please speak with your leader.

As part of our shared efforts to achieve zero preventable harm, Centura’s laboratory team launched a campaign last fall to promote blood stewardship. This campaign educates caregivers and encourages adherence to best practices for blood transfusions, including minimizing transfusions and adhering to lower laboratory thresholds. These best practices, also known as restrictive transfusion practice, improve patient outcomes, from reduced morbidity and mortality to shorter hospital lengths of stay and post-operative complications.

Over the past year, the blood stewardship campaign has tracked transfusion data and provided quarterly report cards for each hospital, as well as individual report cards for hospitalists and intensive care providers. We are pleased to share that in just one year, we have made significant progress in two key blood transfusion metrics:

• We have lowered the percentage of non-emergent RBC transfusions in patients with hemoglobin values > 7 g/dL by 9%, from 58% to 49%. Although transfusion decisions should never be based on laboratory values alone, this metric reflects overall clinical practice and provides a best practice benchmark from other health systems that have successfully implemented restrictive transfusion practices.
• We have transfused 420 fewer units of RBCs and platelets per month since February 2021, when the campaign gained significant traction across our connected ecosystem:

You – our 21,000 incredible caregivers – are Centura Health. It is because of your dedication to the delivery of quality, compassionate whole person care that we are able to live our Mission of extending the healing ministry of Christ by caring for those who are ill and by nurturing the health of the people in our communities. Your individual talents, missions and stories are what make Centura and the care we provide exceptional. Our new website design, which launched on Sept. 13, focuses not only on providing a superior user experience but also highlights you, our services and the communities we serve.

The new site features compelling photography and videography of our very own people caring for patients across Colorado and western Kansas. While utilizing a uniform layout that elevates and unifies our brand across the entire site, each webpage will include functions and features that tailor the content to the hospital, specialty, or clinic it represents. Celebrating our associates and the unique voices of our communities, the new design provides the ability to better share the story of who we are. In fact, each quarter we will highlight a few of the incredible caregivers serving across our connected ecosystem.

Not only will our users have a better understanding of who we are, they will also experience improved navigation, intuitive search options and results and a consistent experience from page to page. Through an automated process, designed based upon best practices, the new website features real-time Emergency Department wait times and provider data that is updated through Centura’s Enterprise Data Store driven by our medical staff and Epic. This move to automation will enable our Digital Marketing & CX team to focus on measuring and monitoring our users and make adjustments as needed to ensure a superior user experience.

A few weeks after launch of the new centura.org, our patients will have the capability to conveniently schedule primary care appointments within minutes by using a new online scheduling tool. Over the coming year, additional online scheduling capabilities will become available allowing our patients to book appointments with specialty providers and service lines directly from the website.  

The new website will continue to evolve with new features and capabilities regularly introduced. We are thrilled to unveil our new website focused on you – our incredible people – and the Values and Mission that lead our work.

Epic and Non-Epic Critical Application Downtimes

To ensure Microsoft Patches are deployed less than 30 days from receipt and to maximize our data security, the Epic Production and Non-Epic Critical Application monthly maintenance windows were moved to the third Sunday of each month.

Important information regarding maintenance window activities:

On Sunday, Sept. 19, Information Technology (IT) will perform monthly maintenance on Epic, resulting in planned downtimes from Sunday, Sept. 19, at 11:30 p.m. to Monday, Sept. 20, at 1 a.m. (2330 to 0100 MT, 0030 to 0200 CT), lasting approximately one and a half hours. Epic will be down and unavailable during this planned downtime.

We will also be performing maintenance on the following non-Epic critical applications and services, which will be unavailable from Sunday, Sept. 19, at 11:30 p.m. to Monday, Sept. 20, at 2 a.m. (2330 to 0200 MT, 0030 to 0300 CT), lasting approximately two and a half hours. Please view the list of impacted applications or services and their related workarounds.

For the month of September, the computer workstation security updates will NOT occur during the third Sunday Maintenance Window. Instead, this will occur on Sunday, Sept. 26, from 11:30 p.m. to midnight (2330 to 2400 MT). Following the installation of workstation updates, you will see a 15-minute countdown and then the workstation will automatically restart. Offline workstations will automatically update and restart once connected to the Centura Health network.

Non-Epic critical applications or services impacted and their workaround:

Non-Epic Critical Applications
Application	Workaround
3M 360 Encompass	There is no workaround for this application.
Alaris Interoperability	Use the Alaris IV Pump Integration Downtime Recovery Checklist.
Ascom Vital Sign Alerts (St. Francis NICU)	Ascom will not provide vital sign alerts to Cisco phones and requires the downtime procedures to be initiated. Additional staffing may be needed.
Flight Vector	The system is unavailable. Please initiate downtime procedures.
Myla Software/Virtuo Blood Culture Instruments	Culture orders will not interface from Epic to Myla during this time. Please follow downtime and manual procedures, as necessary.
Natus Neuroworks	Please initiate downtime procedures.
Nurse Call Systems (All)	Nurse Call Systems will not send alerts to phones. Nurse call alerts will alarm at the main console. Downtime procedures should be in place and the nurse call console should be monitored while the system is down.
OBIX	OBIX will be unavailable. Downtime procedures including in-person monitoring should be initiated which may require increased staff.
Point of Care lab tests uploading to Epic	Point of Care lab results will not upload to Epic during the full maintenance window. POC tests completed during the downtime will upload to Epic once the downtime is complete.
Pyxis	Pyxis stations will automatically be placed on critical override in order to pull medications.
WellSky Transfusion – Blood Bank	WellSky Transfusion (Blood Bank) will not be available. The labs should initiate downtime procedures if the application is needed during the downtime.
Computer workstation security updates	For the month of September, the computer workstation security updates will NOT occur during the third Sunday Maintenance window.  Instead, this will occur on Sunday, Sept. 26 from 11:30 p.m. to midnight (2330 until 2400 MT). Following the installation of workstation updates, you will see a 15-minute countdown and then the workstation will automatically restart. Offline workstations will automatically update and restart once connected to the Centura Health network.

When this will occur:  

• Epic: Sunday, Sept. 19, at 11:30 p.m. to Monday, Sept. 20, at 1 a.m. (2330 to 0100 MT, 0030 to 0200 CT).
• Non-Epic Critical Applications: Sunday, Sept. 19, at 11:30 p.m. to Monday, Sept. 20, at 2 a.m. (2330 to 0200 MT, 0030 to 0300 CT).
  

• Ascom Vital Sign Alerts (St. Francis NICU): Additional staffing may be needed.
• Nurse Call Systems (All): Downtime procedures should be in place and the nurse call console should be monitored while the system is down.
• OBIX: Downtime procedures including in-person monitoring should be initiated which may require increased staff.
  

• Use the Epic SRO icon during the planned Epic downtimes.
• For Alaris Interoperability recovery, use the Alaris IV Pump Integration Downtime Recovery Checklist.
• If Epic SRO becomes unavailable during the downtime windows, use the Epic Down 2 BCA Web option (for Middle Park and Craig Hospital end-users, use the Epic Downtime 3 BCA Web option).

	“There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying ‘There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or less like a head cold – with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.”
	-  Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees

By: Rich Duncan, LPC, Centura Behavioral Health

Depression is the most common condition associated with suicide, and it is often undiagnosed or untreated. Knowing the warning signs of depression and suicidal thinking may save a life – your patient, your colleague, your family member. Be on the lookout for the following warning signs of suicidal thinking:

• Talking about feeling hopeless or having no reason to live
• Talking about feeling trapped or being in unbearable pain
• Talking about being a burden to others
• Withdrawing or isolating
• Sleeping too little or too much
• Experiencing recent trauma or life crisis
• Engaging is reckless or dangerous behavior or self-harmful behavior
• Increase in the use of drugs or alcohol
• Making preparations, like making a will, putting their personal business in order, giving away items or searching online for ways to die
• Talking about wanting to die or threatening suicide

Awareness of these signs of depression and suicidal thinking makes it easier to know when to get help. If someone you know is exhibiting warning signs for suicide, don’t be afraid to ask if he or she is depressed or thinking about suicide. Talking about suicide is not going to push anyone over the edge and make them act on their thoughts. Talk to the person, listen without judgment and be compassionate. Ask them directly if they are considering suicide. You might also try:

• Letting them know you care and that they’re not alone.
• Listen carefully and offer support. Don’t criticize or blame.
• Ask about their reasons for living and try to explore those reasons in more detail.
• Encourage them to focus on getting through the day rather than focusing on the future.
• Encourage them to seek help. If the situation is urgent but not emergent a supportive relative or friend should be contacted, or the individual could be directed to their health care provider. If there is immediate danger the individual should be directed to the nearest emergency department or call 911.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts Colorado Crisis Services is available 24/7/365. Just call 1-844-493-TALK (8255) or text TALK to 38255.