09/24/2021

The Demand for Agility: A Q&A with Fresenius Kidney Care’s Kathleen Belmonte

The COVID-19 pandemic demanded a level of agility from healthcare workers never before seen in dialysis. Reflecting on the beginning of the pandemic, Kathleen Belmonte, Senior Vice President of Nursing and Clinical Services at Fresenius Kidney Care, revisits this need for agility, recalling a popular presentation from this year’s DialysisTechConneXion (DTX21).

How did Fresenius Kidney Care support Nephrology Clinical Technicians (NCTs) and Nephrology Biomedical Technologists (NBTs) when the demand for agility was brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic?

KB: Over the last year, the state of constant change due to the novel coronavirus meant that dialysis providers had to be very nimble and adapt quickly due to changing guidance and regulation. At Fresenius Kidney Care, mobilizing our frontline care teams to support our patients was an enormous effort. Our goal was to keep our patients and staff safe, while also educating and supporting them through these times.

Knowledge of emerging research was, and still is, key. Between consulting guidance from the CDC and scientific literature, the clinical team worked to ensure that every decision we made was backed up by the science.

When the vaccines became available, we immediately started writing messaging that distinguished fact from fiction, while also having conversations with our staff and patients to encourage trust.

How did you motivate yourself and your teams in this past year?

KB: We kept up frequent, honest, and transparent communication with our staff and patients and spent a lot of time educating everyone about exactly what was happening. We kept reminding our employees about our ultimate goal to provide high quality care and support for our patients.

It was important to think about how our frontline workers, like NCTs and NBTs, were going to stay resilient at a time like this. Compassion fatigue is real, and frankly, we need to take some breaks in order to stay engaged. It is crucial to learn how to fully disengage from work and find time to unwind in order to keep up with the pace when you are working.

The vaccine offers me hope that we will see an end to the pandemic, and the national rollout to dialysis patients is certainly a motivating factor.

How do you keep up with all the new regulations and requirements? What has changed about your daily life at Fresenius Kidney Care?

KB: We are constantly discussing the latest guidance and working to ensure we are sending consistent messaging. For example, people want to understand why they have to keep wearing masks and socially distancing if they get the vaccine. By having consistency in policies and communications about scientific literature, it is easier to explain why infection precautions are still in place.

We’ve faced challenges because of the agility required to keep up with all the changes, but we have also seen great innovations and outcomes from these efforts. Telehealth, for example, will hopefully be here to stay. Generally, we’ve become more agile and willing to embrace new ideas; we’ve found different ways of doing things that we never would have considered prior to managing the pandemic.