HJNO Jan/Feb 2021

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS I  JAN / FEB 2021 39 Children’s meets you near your home and tests your family as a one stop shop. This is a good start. Now to improve the testing process. If drive-thru testing can be performed, that is what the mobile testing team accomplishes, regardless of where they are deployed. If buses can load and unload students, certainly the mo- bile testers have a platform to establish a drive-thru model wherever they arrive. There also needs to be a location for pedia- tricians and general practice practitioners, alike. Children’s now offers daily drive-th- ru testing at its main campus for children and families. Flexible, fast, accessible and easy. COVID-19 will never be convenient. That will not deter Children’s Hospital from its mission “to provide comprehen- sive pediatric healthcare, which recogniz- es the special needs of children through excellence and continuous improvement of patient care, education, research, child advocacy and management.” It is our ob- jective and our pleasure to meet families where they need us. We meet them where it is convenient for them, and we do not shy away from this challenge. n AmyWaldrup has been a registered nurse inmultiple arenas for over 12 years. With a master’s degree in Health Care Systems Management from Loyola University of NewOrleans,she currently practices as the Senior Director of Patient Services at Children’s Hospital New Orleans. Waldrup has focused her endeavors in areas from Intensive Care to Emergency Medicine. Throughout her career,she has held positions ranging fromstaff nurse to educator,ultimately becoming the Director of the Emergency Department, Advanced Clinicals,Professional Development and finally Senior Director. She also held the title of EMS liaison and Chest Pain Center coordinator. She has taught in multiple arenas including undergraduate nursing, grand rounds, and pre-hospital care providers from EMT-basic to paramedic levels. Amy has responsibility over the NICU,PICU,CICU,Emergency Department and nursing professional development at Children’s Hospital. Amelia Cook Waldrup, MSN, RN Senior Director of Patient Services Children’s Hospital New Orleans offer convenient testing to schools screen- ing hundreds of students every morning multiple miles apart? How can they all get to one place and not bottleneck? More importantly, how do the hot spots receive priority testing? The government and healthcare agen- cies have identified and implemented easy drive-thru testing, though some delimit- ing requirements included age, symptoms and a first come, first serve philosophy. Is this convenient? No, but we have already established that COVID-19 is not conve- nient. This was the inspiration for the mul- tidisciplinary team at Children’s Hospital – to ensure that students, teachers and households of all ages have one testing location. This testing should be easy and user-friendly; and so, the drive-thru model was selected. Tackling the second issue is proximity to testing and identified hot spot priority. How do you meet families in their com- munities? You mobilize your resources to those areas. This is what Children’s Hos- pital prioritized and implemented. Test- ing on the go employs the strategy that care follows the patient, and not the other way around. COVID-19 is not convenient, but testing should be. By developing mo- bile teams including nursing, patient care assistants and patient service represen- tatives, Children’s testing teams move to where they are needed. Have tests, will travel. Specific schools were identified from New Orleans East to the West Bank of New Orleans as “base” locations that could serve specific testing times for half a day. Then, as needs arose, the other half of the day could be spent at another location entirely. Of tantamount importance, though, was keeping the convenience factor in mind. “Many people know already, it is hard enough to corral children to the grocery with their masks, let alone to multiple clinics. So, family-centered care must first focus on accessible testing for a household, not just a single patient.”