A Fantastic & Dedicated Team’: Houston Healthcare recognizes Incident Command Team

HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — At Houston Healthcare’s System Board meeting for March, representatives from Houston Healthcare’s Incident Command Team were recognized for their own and their department’s invaluable contribution to the smooth operations of the organization during the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic, something the hospital said was an important distinction to make.

The distinctions, recognition and appreciation are important to all involved. To the hospital, the fact that it was on their agenda, and their plan to unveil more appreciation, was a testament to how monumental it was. The Journal spoke with Houston Healthcare President and CEO Charles Briscoe about the team and the impact they made on the community.

“We can’t thank them enough for what they’ve done and what they continue to do,” Briscoe said.

Seven members representing the team were honored at the meeting on March 23, but the Incident Command team is much larger than that. He highlighted that the Incident Command team was the backbone of the hospital’s response to the pandemic, saying that the team was critical in that regard.

The team consists of many people who work for Houston Healthcare. When a situation arises, such as COVID-19, that’s when the Incident Command team forms and springs into action.

Staff from marketing, infection prevention & control, employee health, the clinical resource division, EMS, administration, and the EduCare team made up the representatives at the meeting, but overall they represent a much larger Incident Command team.

“These were folks, that in addition to their regular jobs, stood up and organized us in an incident command fashion, and let us diligently turn a COVID response,” Briscoe said.

According to the hospital, the team was extremely passionate about what they did. That passion wasn’t just about the pandemic response, but is a staple in their everyday jobs.

“To do what we’ve done over the past two years, if your heart’s not in it, and you’re not passionate about it, we wouldn’t have gotten through it,” Briscoe said.

Briscoe recalled the team’s quick formation, after a press conference by former president Donald Trump urging hospitals to get an Incident Command team ready.

“For us in healthcare, that means something.” Briscoe said, “That means a very formal way of organizing yourself to respond to emergencies or disasters in your organization, or in your community. Not knowing what COVID was going to bring to us, we followed those orders and we organized in our incident command fashion.”

Briscoe explained that it’s an entirely different organization structure to normal operations: “[For] every aspect of this hospital that you can imagine, somebody stood up and took the lead in a direct and specifically focused way to respond to COVID.”

The changes that some of the team members saw were unlike anything they had seen before. Briscoe stated that while some jobs switched to a COVID focus, many were changed radically by their inclusion on the Incident Command team, citing a physician relations specialist member within the team.

“He’s out talking to our physicians, working in our community to help educate people as to what our services are, and trying to promote everything we do.” Briscoe said. “That had nothing to do with what his role was in Instant Command. He led the inventory effort.”

Briscoe described that a large part of what the team did was gathering and disseminating information to various departments within the hospital. He said that it was quite the task and a significant one. He also explained a notable change within how patients were treated.

“We had COVID patients being treated in non-traditional areas. We had to do that just to handle the demand.” Briscoe said. “That took this team and a sub-group of this team to get together and say ‘yes, the recovery room can become an ICU if needed.’ And we’ve had to do that a couple of times. We [could] flex surgeries over to the ambulatory surgery center to keep some surgeries going during the pandemic. Those efforts were enormous in real-time.”

He also recounted the stressful nature of the situation, and the toll it took on the hospital and the team, but he reflected that they handled the situation very professionally and passionately.

Through everything they do, Briscoe assured that the team is a valuable part of the community as a whole.

“These are the everyday folks you see in church, you see at the grocery store, out on the ball field, the little league field, volunteering around the community, doing various things to support our community,” Briscoe said. “When they come into work, they turn into these sort of superheroes.”

In March of 2022, Briscoe said the hospital hit a key milestone. The facility reached a point where there were no COVID cases, leading to a suspension of Instant Command operations. Despite the suspension, Briscoe says they’ll always be ready for the next emergency at a moment’s notice, whether it be COVID or not, and all it takes is a phone call.

“It may be suspended, but it’s always there and ready to be turned on.”

HHJ News