UB Pharmacists on the Front Lines

In early spring 2020, Adele Battaglia’s hospital was converted into the Catholic Health System’s official COVID-19 Treatment Facility. “As part of the transformation, the most important task we had was preparing our medications inventory to treat more critically intensive patients,” Battaglia says. “We went from managing a dozen critical care beds to potentially managing 60 intensive care beds, while creating multiple dedicated COVID-19 medical floors.”

The pandemic was a crash course for pharmacists, but her team’s ability to adapt and evolve was no surprise.

 “COVID made us learn at warp speed because new treatment algorithms were constantly emerging,” she says. “All of the pharmacists involved in the care of these patients were ready and prepared to accept each challenge as it presented itself, because that is what we are trained to do.”

Andrew DiLuca’s biggest challenge during the pandemic was supply chain issues.

“Drug shortages are nothing new to us, but the shortages we saw during the spring were magnified,” he says. “We had to review medication availability and inventories daily to not only maintain enough supply to treat the current patient load, but also to plan for the predicted surge of inpatients.”

DiLuca is proud of his team. “For me personally, the reward has been to see how the pharmacy departments across Kaleida Health showed up and stepped up,” he says. “I am impressed by the knowledge and tenacity the clinical pharmacists and pharmacy residents have demonstrated during this crisis.”

Walter Ludwig took on a number of new projects during the pandemic, including coordinating community outreach with the Town of Tonawanda Emergency Response Team, developing a COVID-19 transition unit, educating staff on personal protection equipment (PPE), and providing screening protocols for facility entry.

Ludwig was impressed with the remarkable innovation shown by pharmacists. “The increase in ventilator use requires a great deal of input from pharmacists due to the need for a wide range of infusion therapies,” he says. “Also, because of reduced drug supply, pharmacists were needed to help develop new protocols and substitutes.”

Despite the challenges, Ludwig remembered to celebrate the successes. “When our first COVID-19 ventilator patient was successfully extubated and moved out of ICU, we went around passing out congratulations and 100 boxes of Girl Scout cookies! Those were the good moments.”

Barry Martin observed his team of pharmacists at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital adapting to the mounting challenges presented to them during the height of the pandemic.

“Pharmacists, in conjunction with other health care providers, were instrumental in developing algorithms that ensured patients on needed medications met certain criteria before those drugs could be administered,” he says. “Due to short supply of albuterol inhalers, our staff also helped lead development of algorithms to preserve our supply.”

Through it all, Martin still enjoyed coming into work every day. “We are all in this together, and we will only defeat this pandemic by working together.”

The start of the pandemic brought Jim Millard out of retirement and back into the workforce to lead efforts at Western New York’s only dedicated COIVID-19 treatment center. He worked with system leadership, hospital presidents, chief nursing officers and managers to ensure that all Catholic Health’s facilities were appropriately staffed.

“I used the phrase, ‘We’re treading water while we’re building the ark,’” he says. “We needed to take care of patients today, while building the capacity to take care of a significantly higher number of very sick patients tomorrow.”

Millard says it was extremely rewarding to work with such dedicated and compassionate health care professionals. “I was proud to be part of a team so focused on providing excellent care to our patients, protecting our staff and serving the community during a time of crisis.”

Edward Swinnich has spent his 40-plus-year career at Catholic Health. Swinnich’s team was integral in transitioning St. Joseph’s Campus from a community hospital to a COVID-19 Treatment Center with 24-hour pharmacy services.

“Supporting patient care at our COVID site was a massive undertaking,” he says. “Our IV room was active around the clock batching infusion, as well as preparing patient-specific IVs. We also had to reconfigure dispensing equipment throughout our system.”

Swinnich says the pandemic really showed what pharmacists can bring to all aspects of the profession, from clinical services to operations and drug distribution.

“I have never been prouder of our profession than I have during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he says. “The response we had in the form of pharmacists stepping up in all areas of hospital pharmacy practice was inspiring.”