key: cord-0965157-o22woh5n
authors: Adam, Jean-Philippe; Khazaka, Michael; Charikhi, Fouad; Clervil, Maggee; Huot, Denis Daniel; Jebailey, Joseph; O, Pascal; Bally, Michèle; Morin, Jean; Langevin, Marie-Claude
title: Management of human resources of a pharmacy department during the COVID-19 pandemic: take-aways from the first wave
date: 2020-10-31
journal: Res Social Adm Pharm
DOI: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2020.10.014
sha: dba87de9b93389b1823038b4fb324e6962af0ac0
doc_id: 965157
cord_uid: o22woh5n

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the biggest public the world has seen in many years and poses new challenges and opportunities to healthcare systems. The new reality imposed by the pandemic requires a modification of practices to ensure the health and safety of patients and medical teams. The purpose of this article is to share the experiences of the pharmacy department of the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Seven of the most important issues will be addressed: crisis management, internal communications, employee stress, reorganization of workspaces, reorganisation of pharmacist workforce, telework and schedule management. Some of the changes made in human resources deployment will likely remain even post-pandemic.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an extraordinary is the biggest public 3 health threat the world has faced in recent years. On March 12 th 2020, the COVID-19 4 outbreak was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) 1 . 5 The novel virus poses new challenges and opportunities to healthcare systems around 6 the world by requiring changes to daily practices in order to ensure the health and 7 safety of patients and medical staff. The Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM) is an academic hospital with 15 772 beds and 39 operating rooms that employs more than 13,000 healthcare workers. 16 Located in downtown Montreal, the CHUM is one of the largest hospitals in North 17 America. As established by the provincial contingency plan, the CHUM was mandated 18 to keep positive COVID-19 patients requiring specific tertiary or quaternary care and, as 19 of April, to start receiving COVID-19 patient transfers from regional hospitals. 2 20 21 This paper presents the measures implemented by the CHUM's pharmacy department 22 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Seven of the most important issues will be 23 J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f addressed in the form of case studies: crisis management, internal communications, 24 employee stress, reorganization of workspaces, reorganisation of pharmacist workforce, 25 schedule management and telework. It concludes with a discussion of the changes that 26 have persisted after the first wave that the department plans to maintain in the long 27 term. In response to the pandemic, a crisis unit was created from the beginning and was 44 composed of seven pharmacists and four non-pharmacist managers (e.g. head of 45 department, deputy head, assistant, etc.) to better deal with the rapidly evolving 46 situation. This unit's purpose was to identify and find solutions to the challenges that the 47 department was facing and was expected to face in the near future. A clear chain of 48 command was key: everyone knew their responsibilities and to whom they should 49 report. Subjects covered included: drug supply, employee absenteeism, reorganization compensate for an absence if someone must be quarantined or if they were to become 88 In an unprecedented situation, methods of communication need increased consideration to determine the best approach. 6 In the first week following the creation of 95 the crisis unit, it was decided to set up a secure communication network between 96 pharmacists to reach them quickly in the case of an emergency. We were previously 97 using an operator's application to send one-way text messages on cell phones or 98 pagers. This method was imperfect, some pharmacists never got the message and 99 there was sometimes a significant delay (15 to 30 minutes) before the reception of the 100 message. The CHUM's pharmacy department therefore migrated to PetalMD® for real-101 time secure communications between pharmacists. 7 Its interface is comparable to 102 consumer grade messaging services, and allows users to discuss patient cases in 103 conformity with Canada's confidentiality laws. Maintaining transparency allowed workers to be aware of any new developments, which 134 could reduce their stress. This is crucial, as some workers may feel isolated otherwise, 135 either because they have been assigned to a specific ward and rarely see their 136 colleagues or because they must work from home. 10 Although constant communication 137 was favored, questions were given more time of consideration to ensure that the 138 information given is reliable. to January. This tool will allow us to be better prepared for the second wave where 282 many changes will likely be necessary. (Figure 1 and 2) .We speculate that this might be due to a lesser 314 number of interruptions and distractions at home. These modificationsare still in place 315 more than8 months after the implementation. We report the advantages and the 316 challenges that we perceived in our experience with telework in table 2. q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q qq q q q q q q q q q q q q q qq q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q qq q q q qq q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q qq q q q qq q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q qq q q q q q q q q q q q q qq q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q 

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