Happy holidays from VAHHS! In this issue of VAHHS Update, we bring you some cheer from our members. Hospital staff members can’t generally take lots of time off time during the holidays. Many health care workers need to pick up extra shifts during this time of year, which can be a busy one at home. Nevertheless, health care employees are very adept at enjoying the spirit of the season at work—and at sharing their generosity with their communities. Here are just a few examples of the myriad ways hospital co-workers celebrate together and give to their neighbors.

In an effort to recruit and retain staff amid a national workforce shortage, the University of Vermont Health Network has broken ground on a second new apartment building for employees — a project that will also include a child care center for staff. 

“To do what we need to do to fill our vacant positions with permanent employees, rather than our more expensive, temporary workers, we really need to have more housing,” said Sunil “Sunny” Eappen, the network’s new president and chief executive officer, at a press conference in South Burlington on Thursday.

Despite receiving $55 million in one-time federal and state funds to cover pandemic-related expenses, UVM Health Network ended its fiscal year on Sept. 30 with a $90 million loss that officials attributed primarily to staffing costs. Like hospitals across the country, UVM facilities relied heavily on temporary workers while staffing waned during the pandemic.

There are plenty of viruses circulating through local schools and daycares right now, causing kids to spend more time at home. In addition to COVID, hospitals must also contend with Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and now, the flu.

When it comes to RSV. UVM Children’s Hospital’s Dr. Becca Bell says the number of positive tests and the number of kids going to the hospital is starting to go down. “However, I will say we are still very busy regardless. There’s still a lot of RSV in the community, however, it does appear we’ve peaked,” she said. Dr. Bell says that pre-pandemic, RSV had a 12-week busy cycle that usually ran from January to March. Now, it appears we just went through that in October, November, and December. “We will probably still see RSV in the winter, but I don’t think we’re going to see it at the levels that we saw this fall. I think that we had our season early.”

Vermont’s Covid-19 levels are “low,” the state Department of Health reported this week — but hospitalizations for the virus nearly doubled in a single week.

The department reported 60 new hospital admissions for Covid in the past week, compared to 31 the week before. As of Wednesday, 34 people were hospitalized with the virus, including three in intensive care.

The statewide surge in Covid hospitalizations comes amid a national rise in hospitalizations and case counts related to the virus, according to The New York Times. Cases are rising more slowly than during the early phase of the Omicron surge at this time last year, but all but four states have reported a recent increase in hospitalizations.

On Monday, the White House unveiled its Non-Fatal Opioid Surveillance Dashboard, which will provide year-to-date national data to law enforcement, health care providers and policy makers as they take on the ongoing drug overdose epidemic.

In addition to non-fatal opioid overdose rates, the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) will consolidate information on EMS response times to opioid overdoses, naloxone administration by EMS personnel and rate of overdose patients not transported to a medical facility.

“It’s incredibly helpful in that it brings EMS into the conversation at the national level,” said Stephanie Busch, injury prevention manager at the Vermont Department of Health and a volunteer advanced EMT. “EMS shows up where people are. We don’t require people to come to an emergency department or come to us. That’s just one more piece of this big, complex pie.”