Hi, I'm Dana Jay. And this is Henry Ford health system news.
Your chance to see what's happening around Henry Ford and how we're stepping up
for our patients, our communities, and each other.
This time we started Henry Ford West Bloomfield hospital,
where they have a new team member of sorts. It's a robot named after a surgeon.
Meet Lamont, the new UV robot at Henry Ford West Bloomfield hospital.
Environmental services manager Zenka Janic says she hopes this simple
nameplate serves as a profound reminder.
There is a proof that one person can make a huge difference if they're willing
to.
In this case, that one person is Dr. Lamont Jones.
Zenka recently attempted to surprise him with his new namesake.
I quickly put two and two together and figured that it was going to have to do
something with, with the, uh,
the new robot that they talked about was on its way.
Dr. Jones is a bit of a rock star among the environmental services staff here.
You see, during the spring surge,
he stepped up when he heard the cleaning crew was extremely short-staffed.
At the time he wasn't doing many surgeries because of COVID
restrictions.
I had a lot of free time, and so I thought it would be, uh,
a simple and easy thing to do, um, to help, uh,
support the hospital.
It was very shocking for me, that one surgeon wants to come and clean the rooms.
And at first I didn't take that very seriously.
When Dr. Jones emailed again, asking what he could do to help,
she figured the robot that uses UV light to zap away germs would be a
good fit for a surgeon. So she paired him up with Anna Bota,
who showed him how to use it. Once Dr. Jones got the hang of it,
he figured his colleagues could do it too.
He sent the list of shifts that needed to be filled to the rest of his
department.
The next day I opened it up, I'm like, Oh my God, there were other surgeons,
audiologists, physician assistants.
And we zapped every single corner of this hospital.
Dr. Jones says manning the robots boosted his colleagues morale
at a time when there were a lot of cases, but not many for them.
Although he did find one,
one day while he was cleaning the emergency department.
I got to do a consult on a patient.
I think at first people didn't know who I was.
They were wondering why the person cleaning the room was also, uh, given, uh,
medical advice for, for patients.
It's hard to blame those folks in the ed for being a little bit confused.
Altogether,
Dr. Jones and his colleagues covered about a hundred shifts for environmental
services.
Dozens of volunteers with the Henry Ford Cancer Institute cancer support
services team hit the road just before Thanksgiving.
It wasn't the traditional holiday travel.
The volunteers fanned out across Southeast Michigan and the Jackson area to
deliver Thanksgiving meals and festive centerpieces to more than 100
patients and their families.
This is my passion to work with these patients to help them.
And this is another way to do that actually. I'm a cancer survivor myself.
So, um, I always like to help and give back whenever I can.
The hope by delivering holiday cheer,
they'd take something off the plates of the patients' caregivers.
A lot of additional work for a caregiver on top of caring for a cancer patient.
We thought that this time of the year in the middle of a pandemic,
what better time to give back to our cancer patients and their caregivers than
delivering these meals.
The deliveries were contactless with the volunteer teams calling ahead and
leaving the boxes of goodies on the doorstep,
a safe way for team members to connect with the people they care for,
even during the pandemic, We've got to maintain a.
Distance. We've got to maintain an invisible wall between us.
And I think on some level, this tears down that wall a little bit.
The meal deliveries were made possible by game on cancer and the Ralph C.
Wilson Jr. Foundation.
And now we're going to take a moment to recognize some team members who quite
frankly got robbed this year.
They were supposed to ride Henry Ford's float in Detroit Thanksgiving Day
parade. It typically marches right down Woodward.
There was an attempt to keep the parade on track with just a few float riders,
so leaders picked some of this year's all stars for the special privilege.
Gut eventually the parade went totally virtual.
So here's a shout out to the folks who were chosen to be on our float, CNA,
Andrea Johnson of Henry Ford Allegiance Hospital, and nurse assistant,
Judith Gray Davis from Henry Ford Hospital. Dr. Felix,
Valbuena and Dr. David Kwon were supposed to serve as the parade's grand
marshals.
Here's to things being back to normal well before next year's parade.
And finally, our featured photo,
which is of a pretty cool keepsake for Henry Ford Macomb Hospital.
That's a framed picture of the Us Navy blue angels fly over of the hospital.
In the spring,
the Blue Angels and the US Air Force Thunderbirds flew training routes over
cities hardest hit by the coronavirus as a salute to frontline workers.
Jim Santilli is the CEO of the Transportation Improvement Association and the
grateful Henry Ford Macomb patient.
He had the pilots sign the photo and presented it to the staff.
We want to hear the good news from your corner of Henry Ford.
So send us your story, ideas and photos of you and your team to
newstips@hfhs.org. Thanks for watching.
And I'll see you next time.
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