Connect Live @ Adventist Health | August 19, 2021
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How do we talk to and with each other? How do we maybe do less telling? Because communication isn't just about sharing information. It's a two-way street. How do we ask more questions?

Joyce Newmyer:

Welcome to Connect Live at Adventist Health. I'm your host, Joyce Newmyer, the Chief Culture Officer of Adventist Health. I'll be here every Thursday at noon to bring you a very fast 10 minutes of what's the freshest news at Adventist Health. What's happening here? We'll also ground ourselves in our purpose for just a few minutes, as well, at the end of each broadcast. We will have guests each week who will be talking with us about the most current happenings at Adventist Health. Today joining us is Andrew Jahn, President of the Care Division of Adventist Health, which consists of 24 hospitals and 303 clinics. Also, joining us is Dr. Arby Nahapetian. He's the Chief Medical Officer of our Care Division. And these gentlemen are going to be here with us, talking about how love responds to a pandemic. Welcome.

Andrew Jahn:

Thank you, Joyce. Pleasure to be here with you today.

Dr. Arby Nahapetian:

Thank you, Joyce.

Joyce Newmyer:

My first question is for you, Dr. Arby. We're in the middle of a pandemic and it just doesn't seem to want to go away, despite how much we want it to. Our ICUs are filling up, there's so many rumors around the vaccines, we hear about Delta and Lambda variants. So can you unpack the science for us and tell us, I mean, just how serious a situation are we in right now?

Dr. Arby Nahapetian:

Happy to, and thanks for the opportunity, Joyce. So if I look at the disease, we've had the COVID that we had during the first surge mutate a fair bit, and that mutation is manifesting as Delta and Lambda and some of this is coming from abroad. Part of the push, part of the need for vaccinating folks, is that most of the people that are ending up in our hospitals, in the emergency rooms, are those that are unvaccinated. When we look at the statistics, over 90% of our inpatients right now,ț did not have a vaccine. And so this has become a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Dr. Arby Nahapetian:

Our opportunity to protect both life and frankly, limb, is to be able to make that one and last final push to get folks vaccinated so we, frankly, avoid more variants generating. When you have this pool of folks that don't have protection, that haven't been vaccinated, the virus is trying to survive and mutates itself and becomes more and more transmissible. And the worst thing here would be that it becomes more and more virulent or deadly. And our concern is that, as we have these pockets of unvaccinated folks, we're going to have to develop more and more vaccine boosters to be able to conquer this pandemic. We're still in the throes of that second surge and the opportunity to abate or end this is going to be to get those folks that have year-to-date been unvaccinated, vaccinated. And right now, we have the luxury of having multiple access sites, be it at the local pharmacy, be it at our clinics, be it at the hospitals, for folks to actually get this done.

Joyce Newmyer:

Thank you, Dr. Arby. Andrew, so we have vaccine mandates in the State of California, especially at Adventist Health. Just like every other health system in California, we're mandating the same for our 37,000 or so associates by September 30. And you know, some of our associates are worried about their jobs, see this as a political issue in choice, as perhaps an infringement of their personal rights, or they just don't like mandates. How do we respond to this with love?

Andrew Jahn:

Thank you, Joyce. I think we start by taking the politics and the preference out of this conversation. This really is about our responsibility as healthcare workers and healthcare providers, to do everything in our power to curb this pandemic. I think in that context, I'm really proud of the 25,000+ associates and providers who've done their research and elected to get this vaccine. They're safer, their patients are safer, and by virtue, their families are safer. I personally made a decision to be vaccinated back in March when that was made available. Not because I was in fear for my personal safety, but honestly Joyce, because I spend a fair amount of time in a hospital. I'm in a different hospital every single week. And I felt it was my responsibility to make sure I did everything in my power to keep the people who I was interacting with safe. The last thing I wanted to do is expose them to a virus that was preventable because of the vaccine.

Joyce Newmyer:

Thank you. So for an organization that has a mission of living God's love by inspiring health, wholeness, and hope. What's the best way forward to love our associates through this really difficult time?

Andrew Jahn:

Well, I want to be super clear. Adventist Health has taken a very centrist approach to how we're rolling out this vaccine mandate. I want to be clear that our policies are no more and no less than the regulatory environment that we find ourselves in. I also want to be clear that we have architected a very fair process to deal with the very real exceptions that exist under the law. And I want to encourage every one of our employees who hasn't been vaccinated to first get vaccinated. That's the cleanest and easiest way to bring this pandemic to an end. But secondly, if there's a legitimate medical rationale or an exception, or a strongly held belief, I want to promise every employee in this company that we're going to treat you fairly under that process. And again, a very centrist approach that's designed to make sure we don't lose a single employee to COVID or to a COVID mandate.

Joyce Newmyer:

Thank you so much for both of you joining us to talk about what love does during a pandemic. I appreciate you being with us and all of our viewers. To ground us in our purpose, I want to tell you briefly, a story from Adventist Health Hanford in the Central Valley of California. They had an employee who's known as JR. He unexpectedly passed away in September of 2020. He had served as the Director of Nutritional Services there for many years, but he also spent hours in the Greenfield Community Garden and he was an incredible force for good.

Joyce Newmyer:

They planted a fig tree in his honor, and this has started to produce fruit. This was the vision of Larry and Greg and the executive team. And this garden is being a blessing now to everyone in that community. You can read the full story online at adventisthealth.org/story. We encourage you to go there on a regular basis to see other stories that are helping create culture at Adventist Health, an intentional culture where love matters. Friends, thank you for connecting live this week. We'll see you next week when our guests will be Bill Wing, the president of Adventist Health, and Ben Leedle, the president of our Well-Being Division. Until then, let's all be a force for good.