Joseph: We did not furlough any direct-care nurses. Rebecca: During the first wave of COVID-19, we shut down our ambulatory and surgical services. In the beginning, we did not know how long the shutdown was going to last. As it became clear that it was not going to be a quick wave, we needed to figure out a way to open those services again, which took time. Knowing that it was far from ideal to furlough the staff, we brought staff members back as soon as we could but used them in different areas. Many came to work on the COVID-19 units as support, others worked on non–COVID-19 units.

Joseph: We are talking about assigning additional duties to our patient care assistants so they can take some of the tasks away from the RNs.

Rebecca: In our critical care unit, we use licensed practical nurses and RNs. We also have...

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