Thursday, August 20, 2020
Good morning, IDHS Staff:
Over the past several months, IDHS has experienced an enormous transition in our traditional workplace. Apart from those who have heroically continued their work onsite at our 24/7 sites and other essential functions across the agency, the rest of us adapted quickly to a work from home environment. To manage our ability to remain safe and productive during this transition, IDHS assembled a dynamic team to help rethink and redesign our workplace. Today's Bright Spot highlights our Reinvent and Restore Central Planning Team (CPT).
With multidisciplinary leadership from across the organization, the purpose of CPT is to ensure that the planning, implementation, and the communication of changes in workplace directives, safety, and processes are coordinated across IDHS. The CPT team has worked to retain the best lessons and practices from the COVID-19 experience, to identify new solutions that will enable IDHS to work more efficiently, and, where necessary, resume onsite work safely so we can sustain our valuable services. As a part of this, CPT developed a set of guiding principles to Reinvent IDHS and Restore Illinois.
CPT has modeled their management of both reinvention and restoration after the principles contained in the Governor's Restore Illinois public health plan as well as through ongoing data and guidance from IDPH and the CDC. Since officially convening in early June, CPT has helped to enable limited resumption of services at our FCRC local offices and ensured facility readiness for staff needing to return to the office on a restricted basis to do their work.
To support these efforts, they have developed a set of trainings, new directives, and guidance on workplace safety that is available on OneNet. They have also designed methods for monitoring workplace capacity and distributing PPE and signage across the state. Notably, they have supported divisions and offices with technology solutions and suggestions for workflow redesign to enable staff to continue to work remotely.
This team has operated flexibly in a constantly changing and uncertain environment and has been instrumental in assisting leadership with on the ground knowledge and thoughtful recommendations about how to evolve IDHS' work. The CPT Team is led by Alvin Schexnider, Dana Kelly, Tina Bhaga, Francisco DuPrey, Johgina Densmore, Mark Githens, and Katelyn Nassin, and is propelled by significant contributions from Dr. Rod Curtis, Corey-Anne Gulkewicz, Leslie Cully, Louis Hamer, Kathy Ward, Paul Hartman, Jim Stavrou, James Wilcockson, Krista Culbertson, Dan Tozzi, and Patrick Laughlin, to name a few.
Thank you to the CPT Team for your thoughtful work to reinvent how we provide services and to design reasonable and appropriate measures to ensure that those who must return to the office can do so as efficiently and as safely as possible.
Sincerely,
Grace
Grace B. Hou
Secretary, IDHS
