Page 178 - South Mississippi Living - November, 2020

FINAL SAY
KENT
NICAUD
President & CEO, Memorial Hospital
I am proud and humbled to lead a team of everyday heroes and sheroes that wake up each morning with the care and safety of our community as their core motivator. COVID-19 will forever change the landscape of healthcare. Because of our 75-year history and roots in South Mississippi, Memorial was prepared and ready to lead through these unprecedented times. Our expansive network of facilities and more than 5,000 employees and providers did what they were trained to do: heal our community.
We were one of the first organizations to allocate designated COVID-19 testing sites, having tested more than 21,000 patients
to date, implementing drive-up clinics in areas where access to transportation or primary care was an obstacle, resulting in keeping the cases in Harrison County lower then surrounding counties. Through the implementation of our COVID-19 Taskforce, we quickly developed processes and protocols that minimized the spread of infection, and, after six months, we can still highlight the efforts to keep COVID-19 positives to a minimum.
We managed to seize opportunities to develop services such as
our telehealth network, with more than 23,000 virtual and remote monitoring visits. Through our experiences came wisdom and the ability to adapt. We minimized our risk by managing our threats with agility.
I have remained deeply encouraged by my employees’ dedication
to our patients and inspired by their unyielding commitment to each other. I often write memos to the staff reflecting on lessons learned, not just as the CEO, but, as a husband, father and member of our community also affected by these unpredictable challenges. I draw upon my own faith and remind my team they are not alone; we are in this together, and what they do matters to me and to the community. Here are a few excerpts:
Weathering the Storm
If someone were to ask me where I was on August 29, 2005 I could recall every detail because it changed my life and this community forever. Katrina was a storm that was devastating, but it was also a time when Memorial employees showed their resilience and dedication during the aftermath. We are doing the same with the storm we are facing now – COVID -19. This period calls for us to act with the same proven care and compassion.
Life’s Curveballs
This pandemic is certainly a curveball, but we have risen to the occasion. We communicated often and concisely, weighed facts, gathered information, planned, prepared by staying focused, calm and have taken decisive actions that were meaningful for the task-at-hand. We are one system, one family, tasked with taking care of our community and restoring health. We have been unstoppable. We are Memorial.
Courageously Authentic
To continue to be a high functioning team and build healthy relationships in this new normal, being authentic is important to overcoming some of the social barriers – physical distance, emotional separation, and those not-so- intimate Zoom calls. It can be uncomfortable, can leave us vulnerable, and always carries with it the very human fear of not fitting in. But the greater risk is being inauthentic.
We have endured and the best is yet to come.
178 | November 2020
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living