March 16, 2021
Mary Ellen Hartmann, a registered nurse with Health Link, serves as a clinical manager with the COVID-19 response team, which deals with people’s questions about the virus. “We help call people who need to quarantine, and we offer swabbing for sites with outbreaks. We also report newly symptomatic residents in group homes, shelters, day cares, schools, long-term care centres and designated and supportive living.”
Story by Erin Lawrence | Photo by Leah Hennel
For some of us, on lockdown for much of the past year, it’s felt a lot like Groundhog Day — an endless loop of the same faces, places and spaces. However, this is hardly the case for Alberta’s Health Link 811, where life on the frontlines has been a whirlwind of change and weekly developments to boost the pandemic response.
Committed and passionate about their mission, the team at Health Link is still going strong, even as they take a moment here to reflect on their rapid evolution during first year of COVID-19.
“Health Link is experienced in dealing with emerging issues; it’s part of our expertise. For years we have been at the front of emerging issues, so we are practiced in being nimble and able to pivot quickly,” explains Sue Conroy, Senior Provincial Director, Provincial Clinical Programs with Health Link.
“Even so, it’s been relentless. For us there’s been no reprieve and the pandemic and our response continues to evolve.”
In the early days of the pandemic, Health Link call volume spiked as Albertans called in with questions about what was then an unknown and emerging virus. With their doctors closing offices and as fears about safety grew, Albertans knew they could turn to Health Link 811.
In March, 2020, callers dialed 811 by the tens of thousands. Health Link received more than 248,000 calls that month — with a peak of 12,000 calls on a single day — compared to pre-pandemic call volumes of 2,000 to 2,500 a day.
By early September, Heath Link had handled more than a million calls, thanks to staff who responded to more than 5,500 calls on a typical day. In January, calls reached a milestone of two million — with numbers still rising daily.
To better manage wait times, Alberta Health Services (AHS) doubled Health Link staff and tripled its call-line capacity to meet demand. With redeployment, 275 additional staff with clinical expertise are now available, over any 24-hour period, to answer 811 calls and provide advice to callers on how to access COVID-19 testing, quarantine requirements and accessing non-COVID-related medical services.
“We had to make adjustments to staffing levels quickly,” says Yvonne Ewanicke, Health Link Site Manager. “Our teams worked extra shifts and we brought in all the casual staff we could to help. We also worked with others within Alberta Health Services so they could redeploy hundreds of staff to Health Link to be able to help us manage the calls.”
Trish Chambers, Provincial Director of Operations, Health Link and PADIS, says: “We added more than 300 Registered Nurses to just respond to COVID-19 questions. We have booked countless COVID swabs, given isolation advice and answered every imaginable question Albertans have had related to COVID. I’m so very proud of what our entire team has been able to do to help serve Albertans in this unprecedented time.”
Health Link leadership also established teams to deal with various aspects of pandemic and the flood of calls. For example, the Coordinated Early Identification Response Team (CEIR) is a proactive team that makes outbound calls to places where outbreaks have been identified, such as schools, manufacturing or processing plants, and shelters to help them.
A registered nurse with Health Link, Mary Ellen Hartmann is a clinical manager with the COVID-19 response team, which deals with people’s questions about the virus.
“We help call people who need to quarantine, and we offer swabbing for sites with outbreaks,” she says. “We also report newly symptomatic residents in group homes, shelters, day cares, schools, long-term care centres and designated and supportive living.”
Meanwhile, a Results Information Team specifically reaches out to patients to let them know their test results. Initially, this was the only option before the province set up automated auto-dial notification. Still active, the team notifies about 1,200 Albertans a day.
As questions arose from patients recovering from COVID-19, Health Link launched the Rehabilitation Advice Line, and greatly expanded the services of both the Addictions Line and the Mental Health Advice Line.
One enthusiast of the rehab line is Health Link caller TZ, who wrote to AHS: “I called the rehab line and it’s awesome! I was having issues with circulation to my hands and they gave me some great ideas to deal with the pain and the coldness. There’s also some breathing techniques they went over with me and that was super-helpful. As well, they sent me links to some additional resources. Please send my heartfelt thank-you.”
In December, Health Link joined the vaccination-booking effort by arranging shots for healthcare workers and later, the public.
“We have been working so closely with our partners in both Public Health and Communicable Disease Control all while continuing to offer our core 811 services helping Albertans get the right care advice, and to right care location, in the right time frame,” says Chambers.
Conroy adds: “So many teams and departments within AHS came together to solve problems as they emerged — IT, communications, even facilities. While Health Link was adding staff, we had to, of course, have a place to put everyone. So we coordinated new office space — and appropriately, physically-distanced space — on short notice.”
Keeping up a constant, two-way flow of information between the office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health and frontline Health Link nurses remains vital.
“We work very closely with the Medical Officers of Health,” says Conroy. “Whenever we get new information, we need to get it to our nurses answering the phones quickly.
“But at the same time, particularly in the early days, Health Link became the canary in the coal mine, so to speak. As new questions came and we started hearing about new questions or issues from callers, we would share that information back with our colleagues at Alberta Health Services and Alberta Health. It was — and still is — very important to have the right, consistent information to share with the public. And that’s what Health Link continues to do to this day.”
