COVID-19: What you need to know today (April 1, 2020)
Wellness Starts With Knowledge
At Providence St. Joseph Health we understand the stress and challenges our patients, family and friends face every day and its potential impact on their mental and physical health. Whether its tips on coping with stress, how to work from home, the importance of physical exercise, the value of community and so much more, awareness can make all the difference. Explore insights and resources on our new external website that can help guide that journey. Please help us share this important resource ( www.providence.org/wellnessresources) with your coworkers, friends and family.

Featured Articles:
1 Practice Gratitude
  • See what and who we truly cherish: thank someone, notice the good things that you might sometimes take for granted, act with kindness
2 Focus on your Health
  • Fear activates stress signals throughout the body which can weaken your immune system. Instead of letting fear take over, this is the perfect time to double down on mental and physical well-being (from sleep, diet & fitness to cognition and longevity) through self-care, which will support your immunity and resilience.
3 Re-engage Your Logical Brain
  • Resist getting emotionally hijacked (Let’s talk amygdala-the core fear system in the brain!).
  • Practice self-awareness and self-regulation
  • Check in with yourself regularly
  • Label your emotional state or emotion – starts to disengage the amygdala and re-engage the logical brain
  • Learn what that feeling is telling you about yourself and the situation
4 Maintain physical distance and social connection
  • Tap into your community of friends, peers, and colleagues for support
  • Call, text, message, and video chat with your loved ones
1 Have a clear plan and purpose
  • Understand HIPAA Exceptions
  • Develop a clear and definitive COVID-19 Response Plan
  • For Suspected or Confirmed Cases
  • Investigation
  • Tracing Contacts
  • Sanitizing Workspace
  • Designate one individual to coordinate all COVID-19 related activities
  • Be Prepared to Be Flexible
  • Opportunity to reinforce company culture during stressful times – “Health and Safety of Employees”
  • Include an educational component appropriate for your workforce
  • Allows you to “decide” not “react” during these unpredictable and stressful times
2 Communicate consistently with your employees
  • Communicate frequently. Staying connected, whether there are new updates or not, will help put employees at ease.
  • Establish consistent channels, for example, through CHRO blog, weekly E-newsletter, etc
  • Craft guidelines, such as, how will you report COVID-19 cases? Just Positives? All Persons Under Investigation (PUIs)?
3 Having a safe work environment (It’s the amygdala thing again)
  • Consider remote working where possible
  • If you are an Essential Service Provider:
  • Have a public employee campaign around practicing good hygiene
  • Have a social distancing plan in place
  • Have environmental services out during the day publicly cleaning the workplace
4 Having a plethora of CEOs (Chief Empathy Officers)
  • People need to know you:
  • Care
  • Understand their unique situations
  • Relate to their problems, anxieties, and challenges
  • May consider flexible workplace policies (leave, sick, etc)
  • May consider full/partial salary replacement strategies
  • Promote your EAP services
Print Resources in English & Spanish
Poster
Stop the Spread of Germs
Door Sign
Feeling Sick?
Poster
10 ways to manage respiratory symptoms at home
Poster
Detenga la propagación de los microbios
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¿Se siente enfermo?
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10 maneras de manejar los síntomas respiratorios en casa
We care deeply about your health and safety
There are several things you should do if you are sick or think you may have been exposed to COVID-19, and have a fever or respiratory illness (cough or shortness of breath):

  • Stay home if you are sick or believe you have been exposed to the virus, even if you aren’t showing any symptoms.
  • Avoid public areas and transportation.
  • Call your health care provider or schedule a Virtual Visit first and before coming into the doctor’s office or emergency department.
  • You can find phone numbers for our providers and locations at www.stjosephhealth.org.
  • Avoid coming to the emergency department, unless you have a health emergency and/or you have been advised by your health care provider to do so. This helps prevent the risk of spreading COVID-19 infection.
  • Separate yourself from other people and animals as much as possible, while you are sick.
  • Wear a face mask, if you are sick.
  • Monitor yourself for fever, coughing and shortness of breath.
  • Take the same precautions you would if you had the common cold or flu (e.g., wash your hands frequently).

Use our new online coronavirus assessment tool. We developed this “chat” tool to help you assess your risk and to connect you with a provider virtually if you are at a higher risk for the virus.
We stay here for you
We stay here for you. You stay home for our Immunocompromised patients.

Our caregivers stay here for others who can't #stayhome. Please help those most affected by COVID-19 by staying home if you can. Help spread the essential message of maintaining social distance to protect those most susceptible to COVID-19, even if no symptoms are present.
Stay Informed
Informative websites:





Printable resources:


Contact the Work Healthy Team:

Sent from the desk of:

Teresa Scott
Community Workforce Health Supervisor
St. Joseph Health - Northern California