Snow Business
Date: January 24, 2011

Depending on your circumstance, rumors of a significant snow fall this far south can be cause for panic-filled pandemonium, playful pleasure or, in the case of the region’s largest hospital, precise planning.
Long before the clouds opened on the night of Sunday, January 9 to dump half a foot of snow on northwest Georgia, the team of healthcare providers and support personnel at Floyd began making their plans.

Nurses would continue to care for patients.The cafeteria would continue to operate. Surgeries would continue to happen. And, while all these things happen on the finest spring day, it would be a misrepresentation to say Floyd’s snow operations
were business as usual. They were not.

It is not usual for Plant Facilities workers like Robin Ables, James Sanders, Walter Benefield and Garrett Grisham to come to work at 10:30 on a Sunday night to carry loads of salt to cover walkways and parking lots to help make entry and exit to our facilities safer.
It is not usual for catering associates like Dorothy Mitchell and physical therapists like Melissa Dietz to walk to work every day in a frozen tundra to ensure pediatric patients received nourishment and adult patients received the physical therapy they need.
It is not usual for 70 or more nurses and food and nutrition services workers to come to work with their overnight bags, prepared to sleep at work to ensure patients were cared for.

Nor is it usual for staff members to volunteer to pool their resources and stay in a local hotel at their own expense to remain available to work. They will be reimbursed, but they didn’t know that at the time.
It is not usual for Ashlee Chandler to work a six-hour shift on one nursing unit, sleep a few hours and return for a 12 hour shift on another nursing unit.

It is not usual for Shea Bennett to purchase 48 air mattresses or for Robbin Lee, Charmaine Thomas, Lisa Rosen and Jeannie Tillery to become innkeepers for staff members who needed a bed for the night.
It is not usual for David Early and Beth Leker to order additional medical supplies ahead of standard delivery days, then to work as long as needed to make sure that Omnicell cabinets were stocked and ready for patient care.

Nor is it usual for all of the nutrition services workers who live in Cedartown to carpool to Rome  and for nine nutrition services employees to sleep overnight at the medical center to make sure the patients and staff who depend on them would have food.
It’s also not usual for a group of nurses to expend pent-up energy by organizing a sledding expedition on the nearby levee or for Patti Kean and Lena Payne to make a special snow trek to Walgreens, purchase the ingredients for snow cream, make the cream and share with off-duty co-workers who couldn’t make it home while they watched the BCS Championship game on television.

In a concert of improvisation, sacrifice and even homemade fun, Floyd did indeed weather the storm.

Here are some additional storm-related statistics:

• There were no patient care lapses in any area.
• Floyd traditionally keeps 3-days worth of medical supplies in stock at all times.  The early delivery Sunday morning ensured we were well stocked for the duration of the storm.
• Floyd traditionally receives a shipment of food items on Monday. The snow blocked that shipment, but, because the cafeteria keeps five days’ worth of food in stock, patients and staff continued to receive meals as needed.
• Nutrition services moved to a special menu during the snow, creating new menus each day based on the available supplies.
• The cafeteria provided approximately 120 free meals on Monday, 300 on Tuesday and 90 on Wednesday for employees who stayed overnight during the storm and the aftermath.
• Plant facilities used over 5,000 pounds of ice melt over the course of business Sunday through Wednesday.

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