They say that necessity is the mother of invention, so when Kelly Williams, assistant director of plant operations at Rush Foundation Hospital, and his 16-member team were asked to devise protection for potentially infectious patients admitted to the emergency room, they had to move fast and think creatively.

At the beginning of March, his team needed to provide divider walls for patients admitted to the ER who were awaiting COVID-19 test results or tested positive, Williams said.

These divider walls would need to protect patients and visitors awaiting evaluation as well as those essential workers attending to patient needs at the ER from contracting the virus.

The Essentials

Since the middle of March, many of our neighbors have been stuck at home while another group has been working full throttle to meet the demands placed on the community by COVID-19.

While everyone and all good work is important, many of those who continued to meet those demands at their workplace became known as “essential workers.”

Through the remainder of June, we will be profiling some of the people who stepped up in the last several weeks in a series we call “The Essentials.” We hope you enjoy their stories. 

If you’d like to recommend someone for this series or a future profile, please tell us about them in an email at editor@themeridianstar.com.

“Soon, we needed to consider protection in all areas of the hospital,” Williams said.

According to Williams, one of their most significant projects was to build plexiglass stations in all areas of the hospital and the clinics, he said.

“We created 25-30 stations for our admissions and registration desks, as well as our patient check-in desks,” Williams said. “We wanted to protect all of our employees and our patients, so this need was critical to everyone involved.”

The group’s next task was to make sure hand sanitizer was readily available for employees and patients.

“We wanted to design a free-standing station that could be placed at all entry ways, by all admission desks, anywhere a person might need to disinfect, and we didn’t want to have attach something to a wall,” Williams said.

This unique design soon was implemented by other hospitals and clinics in the Rush Health System.

Working closely with Dr. Freddy Grant in obstetrics and gynecology, Williams and his team created temporary negative pressure rooms for expectant mothers who have tested positive for COVID-19 or who are awaiting test results. These portable units implement HEPA filters that can be used in conjunction with plexiglass panels. The specialized rooms also feature barriers for doctors and nurses to take their personal protective equipment on and off.

It was paramount to be able to keep the mothers and their babies safe and isolated, Grant said, calling them “invaluable” when it comes to patient care.

“We are prepared to even care for infants with COVID,” Grant said.

Perhaps the innovation that Williams and his team is most proud of is the stand-alone shields they created for the speech therapy division of Rush. When speech therapists work with their patients, especially those with dyslexia, they need to be able to see their patients’ lips to assess their progress. With the restrictions of masks, speech therapists could not diagnose issues of concern.

Williams’ group worked many hours to design portable plexiglass shields for therapists and their patients.

Lynn Holifield, director of rehabilitation services for Rush Health Systems, said these shields were “game changers.”

“Not only do they benefit the patients in our dyslexia program, but they can be used for therapy with stroke patients and for rehab with Parkinson’s patients as well,” Holifield said.

Holifield said these devices may benefit teachers, too.

“They even made slots at the bottom for us to pass papers back and forth,” Holifield said.

Williams said he still loves his job after 17 years, and these projects have been so meaningful.

“We look at our patients as representatives of our community,” Williams said. “We say, ‘What if that were our wife, mother, loved one?’ We would want them to be as safe as possible.”

Holifield summed up the work of the plant operations group: “We could not do what we do without this division. They are truly the unsung heroes of the hospital.”