Abstract

The COVID 19 pandemic has been testing the resilience of healthcare workers around the globe. With increased patient loads, the constant threat of exposure, and trauma of treating critically ill there have been exacerbating burnouts and mental health issues. The safety of Healthcare workers is, therefore, a real concern that needs to be addressed comprehensively and decisively. With lessons from the MERS-COV epidemics in Saudi Arabia, Aster Sanad leaders saw the evidence of an emerging public health crisis and did their best to plan accordingly. The health and safety of the staff have always been paramount hence safeguarding them during this challenging time was of utmost priority. Dedicated clinicians, nurse leaders, administrators, and infection control preventions were assigned to support and strengthen the safety of staff. For illustration we are using the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) framework which places health-care workers at the center of the work system. All other system components like healthcare work tasks, technologies and tools, environmental factors, and organizational conditions, serve to enable the health-care worker to perform their role and determine the quality of the outcomes, may it be job effectiveness or occupational health and safety.