Lincoln physical therapist transferred to the front line

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Heather Broglio (front right) and her Beth Israel colleagues with bags of snacks made for the staff by a Bedford woman.

Heather Broglio and her husband Mike (holding a cupcake on his birthday), who works in information technology for the hospital’s anesthesia department and has been rolling out a new software system to be used in the operating rooms.

[/lgc_column]Lincoln resident Heather Broglio, who’s a physical therapist in ordinary times, has been pinch-hitting in a new capacity during the Covid-19 crisis.

“I am usually a outpatient physical therapist that works at [Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital’s] Lexington and Chestnut Hill sites but, when the epidemic started and our caseloads were cut drastically, the hospital took its staff and redeployed them in the hospital to where they would be needed,” she said. “Some people ended up handing out masks or scrubs and some of us ended up being redeployed to respiratory therapy.

“Respiratory therapists are the complete unsung hero in this whole epidemic. They are in charge of the vents, adjusting parameters, keeping them running and managing the tubing going from the ventilators into the patient; taping the tubing and holding it secure if the patient is moved. A strategy that has worked well with Covid patients is called proning and is basically having someone placed on their stomach while on a ventilator. This allows better airflow into the lungs.

“When we were redeployed to respiratory, we were trained to tape the tubes to keep them from coming out of the patient when they are moved [to the face-down position], and then to hold the head and the tube as they move from front to back and the reverse. In regular times, at BI there may be 20-30 vents in use; currently [May 14] there are 72 in use — and this is down from the maximum that were used. There was no ‘prone team’ before the epidemic, so the hospital created the team to free up the respiratory therapists to do other vital functions. It’s really amazing the amount of people redeployed in the hospital and how well it all works.”