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Updated: November 15, 2020 / 2020 Health Care Heroes

Sara Newman

Sara Newman, Yale New Haven Hospital, Clinical Program Director Medicine

 

Honoree Category: Healthcare Staff


Clinical Program Director Sara Newman managed the medical ICU at Yale New Haven Hospital during the COVID crisis in the spring. She essentially created a mini hospital within a hospital by expanding her 56-bed ICU to a 112-bed ICU spanning four floors.

This required at least 50 ICU trained nurses, plus ancillary staff, every shift, every day. Newman created her own crisis patient care model in order to safely provide care for the critically ill COVID patients.

Staffing models such as tripling patient assignments with teams of nurses consisted of non-ICU trained nurses supporting ICU nurses. She helped create teams to provide specialized care such as the “prone team,” which worked with nurses and respiratory therapists to place patients in a prone position to improve their ventilation.

She also supported experimental procedures such as splitting one ventilator between two patients to be prepared in the event of ventilator shortages. She developed and supported a personal protective equipment team that provided appropriate PPE to all staff at the start of each shift and managed PPE supplies and recycling.

She supported and communicated changes in practice that were evolving almost daily as scientific knowledge was gained about COVID.

Newman worked tirelessly to support her staff — who were frightened and overwhelmed — to ensure they had everything they needed and provide reassurance.

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