ROCK SPRINGS — After pursuing a career in the medical field, a Rock Springs native finds herself on the front lines of the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic.

Julia Kershisnik Sweedler, formerly of Rock Springs, is currently running two COVID-19 testing sites in Foxborough and Springfield, Massachusetts. She said Foxborough averages 280 tests per day, while Springfield averages 190 tests per day.

Since April 1, Kershisnik Sweedler has been arriving at the testing sites around 7 a.m. to ensure test kits are ready and can support the number of people being tested each day. She also makes sure all the equipment is functioning properly.

Once that is complete, she has a “morning huddle” with the other departments to review the day ahead, address any issues and provide updates to the department heads. She also performs radio checks with the command center, EMS, National Guard and Hazmat teams. The team prepares all lab requisitions and specimen labels prior to opening at 9 a.m. 

Kershisnik Sweedler and her team stay busy administering tests from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week. She anticipates both testing sites will remain open until sometime in the middle of June or later.

“At the close of each day, I gather all specimens collected for the day and package them for pick up by Quest, the lab vendor we use for the testing sites,” she said. 

For Kershisnik Sweedler, this is a new typical day.

Making a Change

Julia is the daughter of longtime Rock Springs residents Tom and Mary Jo Kershisnik. She didn’t start out in the medical field, but a passive eventually led her there.

Kershisnik Sweedler attended the University of Iowa and graduated with a BA in English and journalism.

She decided to go back to school to pursue a nursing degree and was accepted to Loyola University at Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing. She graduated with her RN-BSN degree and received the Julia Lane Academic Excellence Award for achievement with a 3.94 GPA.  

From there she started working at the Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois. She started working on the Cardiac/Telemetry Unit but transferred to the trauma ICU unit where she cared for highly-critical patients many whom were life-flighted to the hospital because of their medical condition or injuries.

“I worked at Loyola for several years before transitioning to agency nursing, which allowed me to expand my knowledge base and nursing practice in several other areas of nursing,” she said. “I then took a position as Director of Nursing with a company called Wellpath, and have worked for them for the last 13 years.”

Working for Wellpath

Wellpath is a correctional healthcare company with its headquarters based in Nashville, Tennessee. It contracts in 37 states across the nation that include providing comprehensive health services to adult and juvenile detention centers, private and federal prisons, and forensic hospitals, Kershisnik Sweedler said.

She was the Wellpath Regional Director of Nursing for the Midwest before moving to Massachusetts. This entailed managing nursing and facility operations in six states across the Midwest. 

Wellpath bid for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections contract in February of 2018 and asked Kershisnik Sweedler to attend the oral presentation in Boston.

Shortly after that, she was offered the program Chief Nursing Officer position for Wellpath in Massachusetts. 

“So I packed up and moved to Massachusetts,” she said. “I manage 16 facilities across the state.”

Some of her duties include management and oversight of the Infectious Disease Department, Continuous Quality Improvement Department, Utilization Management Department, Regional Nurse Educators, Directors of Nursing and all nursing staff across the system.

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Receiving The Call

Wellpath Regional Vice President Kathy O’Neill informed Kershisnik Sweedler that she’d been chosen to lead operations for the COVID-19 Pop-Up Testing Center in Foxborough on March 30. Kershisnik Sweedler was told the Massachusetts governor wanted the center operationalized in a few days. 

“We had several fast and furious meetings and conference calls with all of the departments that were assisting in getting the testing center ready to open,” she said.

Kershisnik Sweedler met many different department including the state fire marshals, Hazmat team, the Massachusetts secretary and undersecretary, Massachusetts State Police, EMS and dispatch, Executive Office of Public Safety and the National Guard.

Kershisnik Sweedler was then asked to open a second testing site in Springfield. Now, she oversees two testing centers.

Kershisnik Sweedler has been coordinating staffing for the testing sites, ordering inventory of personal protective equipment and test kits, and ensuring results are provided to people who were tested.

She also has daily briefings with all department heads, communicates information in real time for any changes made to the testing center daily operations, and manages new staff being trained when they come on board.

Kershisnik Sweedler reports daily test numbers and provides statistics on the total number of positive and negative results. These results are used to track and trend the data to determine if there is a cluster of positives in one or many geographical locations.

She also makes sure that everyone working at the testing sites take the necessary precautions to protect themselves from COVID-19.

“Myself and the teams I manage at the testing centers follow the CDC and DPH guidelines for PPE use, hand washing and social distancing,” Kershisnik Sweedler said. “In following these guidelines, you keep yourself and everyone else safe so I am not concerned about contracting the virus.”