STURGEON BAY, Wis. —  The pandemic has been a challenge for hospitals in every corner of Wisconsin. From large cities to small communities — staff needed to be flexible to meet a challenge never before encountered. 

Door County Medical Center in Sturgeon Bay is like hundreds of other small hospitals around the state. Through flexibility, planning and dedication from employees, it’s overcoming the hurdles of COVID-19.

Staffing is one of them.

“Our staff crunch was a result of the fact we are a 25-bed critical access hospital and we actually had at, our peak, 31 patients in this hospital,” said Dr. Jim Heise, the center’s chief medical officer. “We are generally set up to take 12 to 15 patients a day on a normal day. When you have twice that in house, that’s going to tax any staff.”

The medical center has cared for between 50 and 60 COVID-19 patients, most of them onsite. That’s in addition to the more typical hospital cases.

 “We’ve actually been really fortunate because we have an integrated clinic within the building,” Heise said. “What we’ve been able to do is take some of those folks who normally work in the outpatient arena, and they’ve been able to go up to our medical/surgical floor and help with patients and act as runners and things like that. We’re lucky we have a great staff that are willing to flex like that.”That ability to adapt — both as an organization and individual staff members — is a common theme at four rural hospitals we spoke with for this story.

Colleen Koski, director of patient care services at HSHS St. Claire Memorial Hospital in Oconto Falls, said they are working closely with sister hospitals in Green Bay about 40 minutes away.

St. Clare sends COVID-19 patients to other HSHS hospitals in that community. In exchange it cares for patients from green bay who require orthopedic surgery and other medical needs.

“We try and help decompress [Green Bay HSHS hospitals] by taking some of those patients into our acute care beds or our rehab beds,”she said. “Increased surgical volume, most specifically in orthopedics, has been more than double what our norm would have been. That’s our contribution to try and help offset this.”

Courtesy: HSHS

Jonathon Matuszewski, who oversees Ascension hospitals in Merrill and Stanley, said they are able to maintain staffing levels by hiring short-term contract nurses, bringing in traveling nurses, using additional telemedicine resources and moving staff from one Ascension hospital to another when needed.

“They’re willing to sacrifice to be able to come in at a moment’s notice to ensure our patients are cared for,” he said.

Heise, who has been working in Door County about a decade after previously worked in a larger hospital near Milwaukee, said he sees the size of his current — smaller — medical center as an asset.

“In a broad sense we’re all in the same boat. Staff is the limiting factor anywhere you go, whether it’s a large hospital or a small hospital,” he said. “I think being a little bit of a smaller hospital we can pivot a little quicker than a large hospital can. It’s a lot easier to move a speed boat than a barge.”