I'm glad we're finally talking about details of healthcare staffing as our local hospitals are overloaded as a result of federal incompetence. I've been waiting since March.

1) the entire objective of slowing the spread of covid was to prevent overload on our healthcare infrastructure. It wasn't altruistic or hippie dippy. It was to keep our systems operating.

2) In Minnesota, Governor Walz has said repeatedly, constantly, that we need to be careful to not spread the novel coronavirus because there are limits to our healthcare system capabilities and there is no cure, yet.

3) As a patient, it's hard to navigate the healthcare system. It makes sense that the objective that Walz described doesn't register with everybody because it's a system that's impossible to understand unless you've worked in it. And even then, it's about who you know.

4) By far, the largest group in "healthcare staffing" is nurses.

Here's the bombshell: Nurses are not interchangable.

Nurses who care for critically ill patients, such as covid patients, generally achieve a certification called CCRN: Critical Care Registered Nurse.

5) If you're a critically ill patient, you want experienced CCRN certified nurses caring for you. CCRNs are intense, demanding, determined, and they are your best advocate in the building.

6) Nursing has a whole third party infrastructure in place that credentials nurses in all sorts of specialties. This is from *one* of the credentialing bodies, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN). https://www.aacn.org/about-aacn 

7) But get this, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses grants many certifications.
These are certifications for baccalaureate level nurses
https://www.aacn.org/certification/get-certified
These are certifications for graduate level nurses
https://www.aacn.org/certification/advanced-practice

8) As our system gets (further) stressed, it's possible to float non-CCRN nurses to help care for critical care patients. Part of attaining certification requires hundreds of hours of critical care experience prior to taking the test.

9) We have no idea how hospitals are sitting with credentialed staffing for critical care spaces. I suspect this is not communicated outside of nursing management circles. I suspect hospital communications people won't answer this question.

10) Yesterday I was discussing all this with a clinical infusion nurse at HCMC. She was exasperated. Tired and frustrated, but still professional and kind. At one point she sat on the edge of a table and said, "I wish people would just wear a mask."