As one of ten hospitals around the country designated by the U.S. government as a special regional center to treat biothreats and infectious diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital’s Biothreat and emergency preparedness teams have been practicing for a potential outbreak for about a decade. But like health systems around the world, the recent coronavirus outbreak is still hitting them hard. The hospital has been trying to increase their testing capacity per day, and the nurse-run phone bank they set up to answer questions from the community and to screen for symptoms has been receiving more than 3,000 calls a day.

Hiyam Nadel, a Johnson & Johnson Nurse Innovation Fellow and founding member of the Society of Nurse Innovators, Scientists, Entrepreneurs and Leaders (SONSIEL), confirms that the situation is challenging, but that innovation is being ignited, and hospitals are coming together like never before. The Johnson & Johnson Notes on Nursing team recently spoke with Hiyam to learn more about the challenges her team is facing amid the pandemic and how they are constantly innovating to respond to these challenges.