NEW HYDE PARK, NY – Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health system, has sent 12 nurses to Michigan-based Henry Ford Health System to help clinicians there care for a rising number of patients suffering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The staff sharing is occurring as part of a newly formed strategic alliance between the health systems, created to strengthen their ability to fight the new coronavirus and more effectively support the health and well-being of their communities.

The alliance is designed to enhance crisis preparedness through collaborative emergency and COVID-19 planning and the sharing of best practices. It enables participating organizations to swiftly increase staffing capacity through temporary staff sharing – institutional requirements are worked through ahead of time to allow faster onboarding and reduce time-to-bedside for reinforcements. In the current exchange, which comes in answer to a call for assistance from the 30,000-employee Henry Ford Health System, Northwell’s intensive care and medical-surgical nurses are providing hands-on care at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and Henry Ford Macomb Hospital in Clinton Township.

“By promoting collaboration and forward planning, this alliance supercharges the ability of participating health systems to respond quickly and effectively to any crisis,” said Joseph Moscola, PA, senior vice president and Northwell’s chief people officer. “It implements and institutionalizes the lessons Northwell learned this spring in treating more COVID-19 patients than any other health system in the country, which is particularly important now as case counts climb in nearly every state.”
Northwell and Henry Ford were both recipients of aid in the form of staff-sharing by other organizations during the spring surge of COVID-19. During the summer, as caseloads threatened to rise in Utah, Northwell provided critical care nurses to a hospital there. The current round of staff-sharing between Northwell and Henry Ford is the first to occur under the alliance and is particularly significant because the ongoing onslaught of COVID-19 is affecting almost every state, making it more difficult for hard-hit hospitals to find temporary staff from agencies or other health care institutions.

The alliance, which may expand in the future to include other health care institutions around the country, provides an important relief valve for participating organizations and demonstrates shared values and the ability to collaborate in crisis in order to put patients first.

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