Health Care Heroes: Dialysis Team
Graphic illustration featuring the medical center Dialysis Team
When your patients come to you three days a week and are in your work area for four hours at a time, a special bond forms and your work becomes personal. That’s how it is for the Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s Dialysis Team.
The team of 18 dialysis nurses, four machine technicians, a social worker, nutritionist, renal fellows, a program assistant, a medical support assistant and five nephrologists work six days a week, 52 weeks a year, to provide life-sustaining dialysis treatment to DC-area Veterans. The team gets additional support from a traveling dialysis nurse and two local nurses who are trained in hemodialysis.
The team currently cares for more than 60 Veterans on chronic hemodialysis as well as hospitalized Veterans and those residing in the Community Living Center which is the medical center’s long-term care facility.
Early in the pandemic, adjustments had to be made to keep the team and Veterans safe including spacing out the treatment areas and equipping isolation areas. Several of their patients have had COVID-19 and required a special isolation room complete with remote monitoring cameras. Treatment schedules had to be shuffled and reorganized to minimize risks to staff and the Community Living Center residents who are on dialysis. For safety’s sake, family members could no longer stay by the patient’s bedside to keep them company during the long dialysis treatments.
According to Nephrologist Dr. Sharon Bennett, COVID-19 has created some challenges for the team. “We have had staff members become ill with the virus and some who had to quarantine due to an ill family member.” She says the team has coped by having a supportive environment, close friendships and a strong “team spirit”.
The Chief of Nephrology, Dr. Samir Patel, adds that the team’s dedication and shared mission is key to their success. “The commitment, hard work and extraordinary performance of our collective staff is what enables this unit to provide exemplary care to our nation’s Veterans.”
As the medical center continues its important mission throughout the pandemic, it is also on a journey to become a High Reliability Organization (HRO). The medical center’s journey is led by successful teams like Dialysis who always put the Veteran first and support a culture of safety.
