GREAT FALLS — The pandemic has been stressful on just about everyone, perhaps most of all people working in the healthcare industry. Employees at Alluvion Health in Great Falls are getting a bit of a reprieve, however.
Katie Henry has worked with Alluvion Health for a year and a half. She is the COVID response coordinator.
"It's just been really stressful. Running long hours, accumulating more patient care,” Henry said about working in the health care industry during the pandemic.
To help reduce the stress, Alluvion's secondary clinic is temporarily closing and the main clinic will be closed from 7-9 a.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from December 14 through the end of February 2022.
"It will help with personal development and team building and that'll create better care for our community,” said Henry.
The change in hours is the latest step Alluvion is taking to help employees.
"We have a great team here. You can speak to your manager, your supervisors, and everybody kind of works together as a team to help with the burnout,” Henry explained. "Our biggest thing is just helping them, getting more resources in, more staff members, utilizing who we have here to create less burnout."
Alluvion Chief Strategic Officer Casey Schreiner said the decision was made after hearing from employees.
"All our employees came forward and said 'Anything we can do to just give us an opportunity to take a breath' and we listened,” Schreiner said. "As a leadership team, we got together and decided the best thing we can do that's for our health care workers and for their patients in the long run is to provide them that opportunity."
While employees won't be dealing with patients while the clinic is closed they'll still be working, doing professional development, taking classes that are available or getting caught up on paperwork.
"Every couple of weeks, we're actually going to survey our employees to see how they're feeling, if they feel like they're getting caught up, if they feel like they're able to take a breath,” said Schreiner.
Anyone with questions about the hours change can contact Alluvion's main office.
