Community. Connection. Collaboration.

I find myself using a lot of heart emoji's as of late. For those of you who know me, you'll understand that this isn't exactly something you'd expect from this INTJ. And yet, if you look through my social media feeds, and even an email or two, you'll most certainly find a heart emoji or ten.

It's such an interesting time to be in healthcare. In the span of five minutes I can feel scared, encouraged, overwhelmed with happiness and then even anger. Don't get me wrong, I'm not letting this spill out all over the place, I am the epitome of calm in chaos (it's my absolute specialty, in fact). Everything changes so quickly, and the immense sense of responsibility I feel to communicate honestly, efficiently and with transparency is sometimes a bit heavy. And, yet, never before have I felt the 'why' in my work so strongly or so frequently. I care so much about our patients, our entire team, and our community and that's the only way you can succeed or even just get by in times like this.

I've also found myself relying on some safe, reliable strategies at this time. On my long drive home today, I sorted them into three buckets - community, connection and collaboration.

Community. I've been outspoken over the years about how critical it is to build community around you. The whole world has never felt more like one big community. And, I've relied heavily on my healthcare marketing community the last few weeks. I've always been part of a small marketing department and I've had to build my 'team' through contacts I've made through NESHCo or SHSMD or prior positions I've held. And, I've never been more thankful that building community was so much a part of who I am. To the people who have reached out just to see how I'm doing - Jeff Steblea, Bernadette Robbins and others - thank you! It's nice to hear from someone who doesn't need an urgent communication to go out in the next two minutes. Thanks for checking in just to say hello. To Dan Dunlop and the Jennings team, thank you for answering my call...always. To know you care as much as I do about our patients, our community and our team means everything. To members of my Covenant team - Sharon Elwell and Tim McMahon to name a couple, in the midst of the chaos you've stopped provided instant signage or just an email ear and it has made such a difference. People make all the difference, know who your people are.

Connection. This is a fun and emotional bucket for me. I have the absolute pleasure of managing social media for my hospital and it has allowed me to feel so very connected to our audience. On Saturday, I posted that we'd no longer allow visitors as of March 23rd. As I hit the post button, I felt my stomach sink. I know what an important part of healing visitors can be for those in our care. The responses: "you're doing the right thing", "this is hard, but thank you for keeping us safe", "how will I get to my appointment in the lab?". More than 400 people shared the post, and there wasn't a single angry face, and I was able to answer questions pretty immediately, hopefully allaying fears. Connecting with our community in this way at a time like this means everything to them and to the hospital - that is the kind of stuff only a heart emoji can describe. There are also the connections between our area healthcare organizations and local businesses and community members. Members of our staff are being contacted by area businesses wanting to donate N95 masks or gloves, and while they're useful, for sure, they're also a bright spot in an otherwise murky time. All the heart emojis.

Collaboration. I'm new to the Bangor scene, and being introduced during a pandemic is less than ideal. But, I'm so impressed with the level of collaboration taking place between local government, community agencies and healthcare organizations for the health of the community. We have shared goals to align on difficult messaging like the nationwide PPE shortage and how it's impacting teams, how we'll work together to care for our most vulnerable populations and standing up a community testing site in approximately 7 days, which is really incredible. I've also collaborated more in the last three weeks with members of my St. Joe's team than I ever thought possible. Who knew an infection preventionist could be a communicators best friend - and who knew an infection preventionist could make me laugh when nothing seemed like it could possibly be even a little bit funny.

When the days are heavy, and they're all pretty heavy these days, I rely on these buckets to refill my own. Community. Connection. Collaboration.