November 8, 2021
Clinical Partners Physician-APP Leadership Meeting
October 2021
Agenda & Video Links
October 19, 2021
Our October Clinical Partner leadership meeting was quite remarkable for a number of reasons. A number of physicians and APPs spoke eloquently and gut wrenchingly about the challenges we are facing as caregivers. Meanwhile, others spoke about the myriad efforts to help us navigate this latest surge and staffing challenge. Our chief legal officer, Santo Cruz, also spoke with our insurance partner, Bob Mahowald, Jr. about the organization’s readiness to support us.
Introductory Remarks — Tom Schrup, MD
Staff Recruitment & Retention — Joe Kalkman, CAO
Capacity Management — Bryan Bauck
Procedural & Surgical Adjustments — Tom Schrup, MD
Legal Standards in a Pandemic — Santo Cruz and Bob Mahowald, Jr
Moral Dilemma in Crisis Care — Drs. Jessie Roske & Ulrika Wigert
Once in a Century Coping — Drs. Jack Lyons, Chris Boelter & more
Summary & Gratitude — Tom Schrup, MD
Here is the video link to the full meeting.
Meeting Q&A
Q: Will there be any disclosure about the number/percentage of exemptions that were granted for the system?
A: Most exemption requests were approved. There is currently no plan to provide additional information about the number or percentage of exemptions granted/denied. Disclose of such information would be contrary to the organization’s priorities of protecting the privacy of our employees who received exemptions and seeking to heal the disruption caused by this process.
Q:Is CentraCare or the individual responsible for covering the cost of the weekly Covid test?
A: CentraCare will pay the cost of the testing at CentraCare-approved sites/vendors.
Q: Are we able to consider separate break room space or shared office space for unvaccinated staff with exemptions to protect our vaccinated or high-risk staff members?
A: It may be possible depending on the totality of circumstances if there is a significant risk of exposure to others and no other way to accommodate the risk. But segregation of certain employees raises the implication and risk of disability discrimination or religious discrimination. It is also contrary to our need to rebuild team morale and cohesiveness.
Q: We have employees who felt that religious exemption would be difficult and didn’t seek them.
A: It was a very robust, rigorous and time-consuming review process. It was necessary for employees requesting that exemption to substantiate a sincerely held religious belief that was in conflict with the vaccination requirement. Federal case law criteria was applied. A team of HR professionals reviewed each request, and all decisions required consensus.
Q: Some of these people are leaving. I have heard of other systems stating that employees should then attest to not using other OTC products that may have been tested on this clonal cell line (that some are using for this religious exemption).
A: We remain hopeful that many unvaccinated employees will stay with the organization and become vaccinated. We are providing education regarding lifesaving medicines and heath care products that utilized fetal cell lines at some stage of development or testing.
Q: As you develop messaging around staffing — I would suggest that you explicitly state how the vaccine requirement is affecting staffing. I know that we do not have all the data yet but that is the scuttlebutt among the nursing staff i.e., we wouldn’t have staffing issues if we didn’t have this requirement.
A: As an organization there were over one thousand open positions before the decision was made to require the vaccination. Our staffing challenges today – like in most other industries – is unrelated to the vaccine, and we would be facing this challenge even without the requirement. We recognize the vaccination requirement will increase that number. The organization determined that the safety of our patients, employees, and communities required that we take this step.