COVID-19 Workforce Resilience/Sustainability Resources
Topic Collection
September 15, 2022
Topic Collection: COVID-19 Workforce Resilience/Sustainability Resources
This Topic Collection focuses on plans, tools, templates, and other immediately implementable resources to help with COVID-19 preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts, focusing on workforce resilience and sustainability.
Please refer to CDC’s Coronavirus Disease 2019 webpage for the most up-to-date clinical guidance on COVID19 outbreak management.
If you have COVID-19 promising practices, plans, tools, or templates to share with your peers, please visit the ASPR TRACIE Information Exchange COVID-19 Information Sharing Page (registration required) and place your resources under the relevant topic area. Resources specific to workforce protection and sustainability can be placed under the COVID-19 Workforce Resilience/Protection/Sustainability Resources Topic.
NOTE: inclusion of any reference in this document does not constitute an endorsement, acknowledgment, or suggestion that the reference is the only or best example for that topic. References are included as examples which were provided as suggestions at the time the document was developed.
All guidance posted is accessible to the public, and non-federal resources are noted with an asterisk (*). Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. government, or any of its employees, of the information and/or products presented on that site.
Education and Training
This website has links to multiple webinars explaining how to protect healthcare workers.
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This webinar, posted 2/19/2020 from the Emergency Nurses Association, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the CDC and the National Ebola Training and Education Center, provides information for health care providers on COVID-19.
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This series of webinars focuses on personal protective equipment and infection control, emergency management, and patient treatment and care in various healthcare settings. Continuing education credit is available for some webinars.
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This page contains health and safety resources and multiple trainings for workers who may be at risk of exposure to COVID-19.
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This frequently updated page includes information on use, donning and doffing, and decontamination of personal protective equipment; protocols and checklists; inpatient, ambulatory, surgical, special patient populations, treatment, and patient transport guidance; and other related resources for healthcare providers.
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This webinar, recorded on February 24, 2020, explains the latest updates on COVID-19.
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Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR) is a 5-hour interactive course designed for providers to help survivors gain skills to manage distress and cope with post-disaster stress and adversity. This course is for individuals who want to learn about using SPR, learning the goals and rationale of each core skill, delivering SPR, and supporting survivors in the aftermath of a disaster or traumatic event (https://learn.nctsn.org/enrol/index.php?id=535 *).
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Education and Training: Personal Protective Equipment
This infographic explains how to properly wear a respirator and includes facts about respirators and COVID-19. It also includes practical reminders for the healthcare workforce.
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This town hall webinar from 3/26/2020 addresses questions about ventilation, surface disinfection, respirators, construction issues, and occupational health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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This website provides information about methods used to decontaminate filtering facepiece respirators. While these methods are not approved as a standard of care when personal protective equipment supplies are adequate, they may be considered to ensure continued availability during supply shortages.
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This site has multiple links to help healthcare facilities and staff optimize their personal protective equipment (PPE), with specific guidance on the usage of gowns, masks, eye protection, and N95 respirators, PPE decontamination procedures, and responses to frequently asked questions.
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This Excel-based calculator allows healthcare facilities and other workplaces to enter the quantity of their current stock of various types of personal protective equipment (PPE) and calculate an average consumption rate (burn rate). Based on the burn rate, they can estimate their remaining PPE supply.
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This frequently updated page includes information on use, donning and doffing, and decontamination of personal protective equipment; protocols and checklists; inpatient, ambulatory, surgical, special patient populations, treatment, and patient transport guidance; and other related resources for healthcare providers.
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These links reference OSHA’s enforcement guidance for N95 respirators and fit-testing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The guidance is intended to be time-limited to the current public health crisis and discusses allowing for flexibility on annual fit-testing enforcement and re-use of disposable filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs).
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This website provides up-to-date links on recently passed Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs). EUAs may be issued to allow for the use of personal protective equipment decontamination technologies, amongst other things, during times of crisis.
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Guidance
This resource page dated 3/28/2020 offers considerations for retired physicians interested in returning to practice to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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This ASPR TRACIE Technical Assistance response document provides resources specific to healthcare system emergency preparedness planners and healthcare workers to use while preparing for and responding to staff absenteeism related to the infectious disease outbreaks.
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This guidance provides information specific to law enforcement officers that may experience unique challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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This guidance applies to all first responders, including law enforcement, fire services, emergency medical services, and emergency management officials, who anticipate close contact with persons with confirmed or possible COVID-19 in the course of their work.
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This web page provides guidance for state, tribal, local, and territorial health departments on staffing the public health workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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This page includes the emergency temporary standard (ETS) to protect healthcare workers from contracting COVID-19. In addition to the ETS, the page includes links to fact sheets, a press release, frequently asked questions, the executive order instructing development of the ETS, and resources to guide implementation of the ETS.
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This table provides a summary by practitioner type of licensing pathways, the requirements and process, estimated time to receive approval, and applicability to telehealth and virtual care. While intended for healthcare workers in the state of Washington, some of the content may apply in other states.
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Management of Exposed and/or Sick Healthcare Workers
This guidance can help occupational health program leaders make decisions about when healthcare workers with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 can return to work.
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This guidance can assist with the assessment of risk, monitoring, and work restriction decisions for healthcare workers with potential exposure to COVID-19.
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Plans, Tools, and Templates
This one-page checklist offers planning recommendations for healthcare providers to improve their personal preparedness for COVID-19.
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These frequently updated guidelines offer: 1) information on personal protective equipment, 2) algorithms, 3) other clinical information and announcements, 4) control plan and testing, 5) signage in multiple languages, 6) forms, 7) staff education materials, 8) provider and staff training resources, 9) patient education, 10) email digests, and 11) external resources.
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Self-Care and Resilience Resources for Responders and Healthcare Workers
Disaster behavioral health (DBH) includes the provision of mental health, substance abuse, and stress management services to disaster survivors and responders (ASPR ABC, 2012). Incorporating DBH into all phases of emergency management can ensure resident and responder preparedness, an effective, compassionate response effort, and a more resilient community moving forward. The resources on this page can help our stakeholders accomplish these goals.
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ASPR TRACIE has worked closely with ASPR At-Risk Individuals, Behavioral Health & Community Resilience (ABC) interagency/ external partner working groups in every disaster recovery operation for the last four years. One continuous knowledge gap identified during this time has been the need for information for front-line healthcare and social services workers to use prior to a disaster to recognize and reduce their stress levels and maintain resilience during recovery. These modules are designed for healthcare workers in all settings, but primarily hospital-based providers.
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This short video can help healthcare providers create self-care plans to minimize stress and boost resilience.
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This five-minute video and exercise can help healthcare practitioners understand stress reactions and learn how taking just a few minutes to check in with oneself and de-stress can help.
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ASPR TRACIE. (2020).
Responder Safety and Health.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response.
The resources in this Topic Collection focus on safety strategies (e.g., preventing fatigue, ensuring the availability and correct use of personal protective equipment) and maintaining behavioral health (e.g., working through stress and preventing/addressing compassion fatigue).
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This tip sheet describes military life and what makes it unique and explains how to support personnel and their family members.
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This tip sheet describes methods that healthcare workers can use to improve their sleep to maintain their health.
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This one-page tip sheet lists the challenges healthcare personnel face during infectious disease outbreaks followed by “strategies for sustaining healthcare personnel well-being.”
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This webpage can help users (including parents, responders, and people who have been released from quarantine) understand and manage their stress reactions to the pandemic.
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This document provides information on policies and best practices to use in the workplace to promote the health of the workforce and subsequently enhance and improve worker performance.
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This one-page document provides national crisis support hotlines and directories for healthcare workers experiencing COVID-19 related stress and burnout.
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This webpage from the National Academy of Medicine includes strategies and resources to support the health and well-being of clinicians providing health care during the COVID-19 outbreak.
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Healthcare workers and responders can use the information on this webpage to recognize and manage their stress during and in the aftermath of an infectious disease outbreak.
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This factsheet provides recommendations for self-care related to sleep, eating, exercise and interacting with others.
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This resource provides recommendations for healthcare workers and leaders to consider for managing grief following the death of a healthcare worker during the COVID-19 response.
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This resource provides tips and general guidance to mitigate the impacts of healthcare provider grief related to patient death and to maintain workforce efficiency and individual well-being.
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Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. (2021).
Compiled Resilience Tips.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
This is a compilation of resilience tips that were shared on a weekly basis to the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) listserv during the winter and spring of 2021. These tips are evergreen, evidence-based ideas that can help both MRC unit leaders and volunteers build their resilience.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating impacts on first responders’ mental and physical health. Throughout the disaster response phase, regional recovery leaders, and dedicated interagency partners worked to create a coordination forum to discuss both challenges, solutions, and resources. This three-part COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Speaker Series explores opportunities to raise awareness about resources that can help reduce burnout, promote mental health, and encourage trauma-informed care strategies among the health and emergency management workforce in response to COVID-19.
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Scroll down on this webpage for a list of hotlines healthcare providers can call for emotional support and to boost resiliency.
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This tip sheet, dated 3/18/2020, provides helpful strategies for the general public and healthcare workers on understanding stress and self-care.
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Supporting Workers
The authors address the toll of COVID-19 on the healthcare workforce and discuss risk factors and needs that leaders can address to improve resilience.
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This webpage includes links to COVID-19-related resources on topics including behavioral health and a peer-reviewed list of questions and answers specific to environmental and occupational health.
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This document lists the states which have implemented childcare resources for healthcare workers as of 4/7/2020. It also includes methods administrators can do to ensure healthcare workers have appropriate childcare options during the pandemic.
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This guidance from 3/25/2020 details how administrators can prevent burnout and ensure staff feel supported at work during the pandemic response.
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This document from 5/20/2020 offers suggestions for how hospitals and health systems can support the mental health, food access, and housing needs of their workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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These strategies can help leaders influence the value, flexibility, and safety for healthcare staff.
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This tip sheet describes considerations for the families of healthcare workers when that healthcare worker has been or is at risk of being exposed to COVID-19.
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This one-page tip sheet lists the challenges healthcare personnel face during infectious disease outbreaks followed by “strategies for sustaining healthcare personnel well-being.”
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Maintaining appropriate staffing in healthcare facilities is essential to providing a safe work environment for healthcare workers and safe patient care. This document gives strategies to maintain workforce capacity.
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This guide may be used help leaders communicate with and support staff dealing with the challenges of working through the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Within healthcare settings during COVID-19, staff have experienced increased adverse stress conditions, which have led to increased absenteeism and turnover, lower morale, and decreased productivity. This resource highlights workforce challenges that have emerged during COVID-19 and provides concrete practical approaches that hospital management and executives have utilized during COVID surges to support and retain their workforce. This resource provide common practices that can inform hospital management and executives in workforce retention and resilience strategies.
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This article identifies healthcare worker safety issues that may result when responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and offers strategies to address these concerns.
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Workplace Policies and Human Resources Guidance
During a pandemic, healthcare facilities may need telehealth/medicine capabilities. Telehealth policies help to prevent potential exposure in the workplace, thus limiting the impact to the health of the healthcare workforce. This guide is a resource for administrators to initiate those capabilities.
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This guidance explains that all federal employees who develop COVID-19 while performing duties in their federal job capacity are entitled to workers' compensation coverage.
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