Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems (SVCHS) staff members have been awarded four Healthcare Heroes Awards through The Business Journal of Tri-Cities TN/VA.
The Business Journal of Tri-Cities TN/VA has held this annual award for more than 25 years now to draw the attention of the region’s business community to the individuals and organizations that go above and beyond the call of duty in the provision of healthcare in northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia. This year, more than ever before, the value of quality healthcare to our region has been thrown into stark relief by the COVID Crisis. Four of SVCHS’ staff members were awarded for their patient-centered care that has been exhibited during this unprecedented time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Healthcare Heroes award winners were:
Bryan Haynes, SVCHS Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – Healthcare Hero:
Bryan has served as Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems fearless leader since 2011. During his time here, he has been nominated for multiple awards and also won the Virginia Healthcare Association as the recipient of the 2015 Tony Lawson Special Recognition Award. This award recognizes an outstanding staff person of a member organization or of the Virginia Community Healthcare Association, who is a non-provider or non-volunteer, for their extraordinary efforts in support of the organization’s overall mission. More recently, in July 2020, Bryan was appointed to Virginia Governor’s Ralph Northam’s Governor’s Advisory Board on Primary Care.
During these last six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bryan has worked tirelessly to ensure that the staff and patients of Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems were safe in our offices by implementing new policies of sanitation and triage processes. He has helped our staff transition from the majority of in-person visits to offering more tele-health, tele-dental, and tele-behavioral health visits to keep our providers and patients protected from the spread of this disease.
Not only had Bryan worked to keep everyone safe and healthy, he has ensured that the organization had enough funds to be able to weather this storm by applying and securing multiple grants and small business loans to ensure that our staff has been able to keep employment.
While other CEOs would have stood back and let the staff take on the hard work, Bryan has always dove head first and lent a hand into any help needed by or any situation of our four community health centers, two dental facilities, and two substance abuse programs. When employees tested positive for the Coronavirus, Bryan suited up and helped sanitize the work areas and places of these employees, while never batting an eye to the risk he was putting himself in.
Kristin Bresowar, MD, SVCHS Medical Director – Healthcare Hero:
Since her work began at Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems as the Medical Director in 2014, Dr. Bresowar has always been patient-focused. Dr. Bresowar hit the ground running nearly six months ago when the news was released that a global pandemic was in full force. With the help of the senior management staff, Dr. Bresowar began work on setting up drive-thru testing sites. These sites have been set up at multiple community health centers in Southwest Virginia including Saltville, Meadowview, Bristol, and Tazewell to ensure that members of the four communities that we serve have the ability to be tested if they are exhibiting any kind of COVID-19 symptoms. This has recently been opened up to assisting with local police departments and town halls that have been exposed to the disease. Dr. Bresowar and her team have put in many long hours ensuring that each testing site goes off without a hitch each time they do one. This includes preparation work of paperwork, tent and table set up, appointment making, and the preparation of tests for patients. Dr. Bresowar, in the coming weeks, plans to do more testing expansion to be able to encompass more patients in different areas. Without the relentless leadership of Dr. Bresowar, these events would not be able to even happen.
Dr. Bresowar has spearheaded the tele-health visits for patients to take part in during this time of pandemic to ensure that patients are up-to-date on their yearly physicals and have enough medications to last them. She specifically has directed this initiative toward ensuring that high-risk patients are not potentially put into a setting where their health could be compromised by getting COVID-19.
Brooke Ellison, RN, SVCHS Care Coordinator at Twin City Medical Center, Bristol, VA – Healthcare Hero:
A few short weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic struck and everything in the medical world was turned upside down, Brooke was thrown into a whole new role due to the injury of our Clinical Director. Due to the injury, Brooke had to step in to fill her shoes until she healed, but little did Brooke know how important her stepping up would be to our whole organization. Brooke hit the ground running when the pandemic began hitting areas close to use by ensuring that all of our clinical teams had enough Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to lessen exposure to our teams and their families. While keeping stock of what we currently had, Brooke went into full research mode to find additional sources of PPE to have on hand. We have community health centers from Bristol to Tazewell, Brooke would take it upon herself to make deliveries from Bristol to Tazewell to ensure that all providers had enough gloves or masks.
Since the implementation of our drive-thru testing sites, Brooke has taken on a leadership role in ensuring that these testing sites are well-equipped with tests, PPE, and any other necessary supplies. She has worked hard in registering patients, directing the sites, and even doing testing herself.
Migrant Health Network – Sarah Agron, Miguel Tejero, Mary Manzanzani, and Izamara Ayala: Cup of Kindness, Crisis Management Award:
The Migrant Health Network (MHN) provides basic health services for migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families in Southwest Virginia. A program of Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems, Inc., the MHN is funded by the Bureau of Primary Care, Migrant Health Division. The Migrant Health Network was established more than 20 years ago to improve access to healthcare, health education, and wellness activities for migrant and seasonal farm workers of Southwest Virginia particularly in the counties of Lee, Scott, Russell, Smyth, Washington, Grayson, Carroll, Patrick, Tazewell, and the City of Bristol. The MHN provides many services on a sliding scale to migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Services include, but are not limited to, the following: primary care medical services, health education, outreach, health assessments, referrals, and case management.
During this trying time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hispanic communities that are primarily farmworkers were hit hard with this disease leaving them with very limited resources in the area due to a language barrier. This demographic also falls into the high-risk category for COVID-19 due to the high percentage of underlying health conditions. Migrant farmworkers have different and more complex problems than those of the general population. Migrant farmworkers suffer frequently from untreated diabetes, high blood pressure, respiratory diseases, contact dermatitis, dental problems, urinary tract infections, and musculoskeletal problems. Not only can migrant workers be at a higher risk for diseases, they also face a lack of transportation, lack of the knowledge of resources in an area, lack of resources to pay for care, and their mobile lifestyle can often play a role in the possibility of more health problems.
Migrant Health workers for Southwest Virginia Community Health Systems have stepped up tremendously in assisting and volunteering with the local health departments, clinics, hospitals, and governments in providing translating assistance to this Hispanic community that speaks predominantly Spanish. While providing language services, the Migrant Health workers have also provided transportation to doctor’s visits and COVID-19 testing sites and assistance with resources regarding COVID-19. Without the extra help from the dedicated staff of the Migrant Health Network, this Hispanic community could have been left much more ravaged by this disease.
“This is such a huge honor for our organization. We are so extremely proud of our Healthcare Hero Awardees, but also of all of our staff members who have worked so hard for our patients and communities during this pandemic. All of our staff members always performs their jobs to the fullest, but during this time has had to work in an environment with the knowledge that every single patient that they come in contact with could be carrying and infect them with this deadly virus, “Chad Brown, SVCHS Chief Operations Officer (COO), said.
