What's it like to be the top lawyer, executive vice president and chief compliance, privacy and ethics officer for a hospital and health care system at the epicenter of a pandemic?

Busy, obviously. And stressful. But also rewarding, according to Megan Ryan, who serves all the aforementioned roles for the Nassau Health Care Corp., on Long Island, New York.

Since March, Ryan has been working up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week. She's had to keep the hospital in compliance with an array of executive orders and policies. She's consoled coronavirus patients and their distraught families, who were unable to enter the hospital. She's helped to ensure that patients had ventilators and employees had personal protective equipment.

She might also have contracted COVID-19.

Ryan, a featured speaker for the upcoming General Counsel Conference 2020, talked with BenefitsPRO's sister site Corporate Counsel about what she's been through during the past several months, how she's coped and how the experience has changed her.

Corporate Counsel: I'd like to hear about what it's been like to work at a hospital during the pandemic, especially from a GC's perspective.

Megan Ryan: I'm in New York, in Nassau County, and we got hit hard in April. We were the epicenter for the country at that time. From March until today it's just been around the clock trying to keep up with Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo's executive orders and his policies. We also have a nursing home and do the health care for the jail, so we were making sure we were compliant with all the rules. But then also we had to think of our patient safety, our employee safety. Honestly, it was around the clock, nonstop, trying to procure any PPE. We even had to go out and get morgue trucks. I was here from seven in the morning until 11 at night. You go home for a few hours and you're getting calls at two and three in the morning from the overnight staff looking for supplies, having questions. We had to stop our visitation here. Patients' families were scared and upset, so we were working on that. I had my hands in a lot of different areas. I was also trying to protect my guys. I sent them home and had them rotating. I had an attorney coming in for a few hours a week to help me. But I kept coming in so that way in case anything happened to me we would have backup. It was like nothing I've ever experienced and hope to never experience again. I'm very proud of our work and also the medical staff. It really brought the entire hospital together.

You have so many different priorities now compared to what you had just a few months ago. How do you juggle all of that?

MR: I keep a lot of lists. People think things are slowing down. Things are picking up. We're trying to open up the visitation but trying to do it carefully and appropriately, so we're working on the policies for that. Honestly, I just try to keep on top of it. Work has been my life for the past few months. You basically get a few hours off to get some sleep. My family has been wonderful, very understanding. And I love what I do. We're making a difference. You draft a policy, you implement it and you see its effect. When we open up visitation, you'll see the families are going to welcome that. When we're about to get PPE for our staff, you see the effect. I like being able to see the results.

In this time of crisis, being resilient is a must. How do you build a resilient team? What do you see as your key responsibilities as a leader in cultivating resilience in your team?

MR: You cultivate resiliency by demonstrating resiliency. Working at the hospital during COVID-19, the legal department needed to be available to not only proceed with our day-to-day work but we needed to support the medical staff by following the issuance of New York State governor's executive orders and DOH [New York State Department of Health] mandates and guidance in order to draft policies, procure PPE and supplies and address employee concerns. There was no time to be inactive because there would be consequences.

One consequence could be your employees not having PPE. But what are some of the other potential consequences you've faced?

MR: We had to act very quickly if there were people or employees who were vulnerable and didn't feel comfortable coming to work. We had to try to find accommodations, do it the proper way. We're a hospital and we can't have everyone staying home. We had to work on policies to make sure we were in compliance. We have reporting surveys to the county or the state that we're still doing every day. At one point we were doing three a day. Now we're doing one a day. If we didn't submit it on time I'd get a call from DOH asking, "What's going on, where's your survey?" With patients, I tried to be proactive. How many times has a general counsel talked to patients' families unless they're being litigated? These families, I would try to talk to them because they weren't allowed in here. I'd provide iPads or cellphones so they could FaceTime their loved ones. We had to move quickly on that too to make sure family members and patients had peace of mind. We had very sick patients here so we had to make sure we had the optimal number of ventilators and the correct staffing. We were doing contracts back in March. Right away, we were doing temporary staffing contracts.

Never would've thought that a GC would be that involved in the trenches, out there talking with patients and their families?

MR: Neither did I! I don't think most are. I think most are working from home.

Have you had a COVID test?

MR: I had the antibody test and I came back negative. I don't know how that's possible. I was pretty sure I had it back in the first week of February. I was the sickest I've ever been in my life. And then my children got it. They said it was like a weird type of pneumonia. A 103, 104 fever. All that stuff. I think I had it, but who knows.

Luckily, we were able to come in, knock on wood, and work seven days a week here. I mean, how do you expect our staff to show up here and put themselves at risk with patients? The leadership has to show up too.

Do you think the pandemic will permanently change the way you approach your job?

MR: Oh yeah. The relationships you made during those few months, that won't go away. I think you become more compassionate and you prioritize. I believe our department has been very efficient. We get things done. But in light of an emergency, we're able to be quicker, more proactive, see things on the horizon and try to ward them off. We're going to just continue to be more proactive. You don't go through something like this without lasting effects. I like the fact that I was able to connect with employees that I might not have been able to otherwise.

What was it that initially drew you to the health care industry?

MR: I was always drawn to the sciences and just liked that growing up. Health care is so diversified. There are so many opportunities. You get to handle so many different things while still being an attorney, being involved in litigation. It's a chance to use your law degree and be a good guy and make a change.

Join hundreds of your in-house counsel peers at the premier forum to network, learn and evolve in your legal role. Secure your place today at the General Counsel Conference, taking place on Sept. 15-16, 2020. Register today!

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NuHealth's Megan Ryan describes hectic life as a health care general counsel during coronavirus

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