Moving Mountains to Move Masks
Hawaii high school classmates pull together to get critical PPE to state health care workers Think globally. Act locally. And never forget your Hawaii roots. Doing just that was a large part of the driving force behind a large shipment of much-needed personal protective equipment (PPE) recently distributed to Hawaii health care workers thanks to a high school connection shared by Robin Chan, co-founder of national nonprofit Operation Masks, and two of his fellow Punahou School alumni. Its team was comprised of Chan’s friends and entrepreneurs with backgrounds in health care, technology and logistics. Since mid-March, Operation Masks has leveraged [...]
Here Comes the Rush, Here Comes the Good
How we can all help our health care workers get more PPE “Like a community bracing for a coming flood, we’re piling up ‘sandbags’ of resources to help blunt the expected peak of Hawaii’s COVID-19 outbreak,” says Hilton Raethel, president and CEO of Healthcare Association of Hawaii (HAH). “And everyone can contribute.” In addition to hand washing and physical distancing to slow virus transmission, Raethel says people can continue to help by wearing cloth masks and providing personal protective equipment (PPE) for our health care workers on the front lines. HAH, whose membership includes Hawaii’s acute-care hospitals, skilled nursing [...]
THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS
Myra Ching-Lee Hawaii State Department of Health Epidemiological Specialist Inside the COVID-19 case investigation process with State Epidemiological Specialist Myra Ching-Lee. “Tracing the origins of a positive COVID-19 case is much like trying to solve a crime,” says Myra Ching-Lee, one of the Hawaii Department of Health’s (DOH) most experienced epidemiological specialists with more than 25 years on the job. When the DOH Disease Investigation Branch team receives test results from private labs, the real work for its disease detectives begins, piecing together information about a patient’s case. We asked Ching-Lee to explain some of the tricky, [...]