Rapid Deployment of Team Nursing During a Pandemic: Implementation Strategies and Lessons Learned.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of patients requiring intensive care nation-wide, leading to nurse staffing shortages in many units.

Local Problem: At the beginning of the statewide COVID-19 surge, a tertiary teaching hospital in the upper Midwest experienced a sharp increase in patients needing intensive care. To relieve the resulting staffing shortage, it implemented a pilot program to bring general care nurses into its 21-bed mixed specialty intensive care unit to free intensive care unit nurses to help staff the hospital's COVID-designated units.