Hometown Hero: Lissa Nelson

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Lissa Nelson is a Valley Stream resident and works as the employee health manager at LIJ Valley Stream. 

Part of my role here as an employee health nurse is really making sure our employees are in an optimal state of health, especially when it comes to being able to work and deliver care to our patients. Part of that is making sure that they’re vaccinated and protected, and certainly one of the biggest challenges we have this year is managing Covid. So it’s been a godsend that we have the vaccines now.

We’re making sure we have the logistics together — we support that effort. We’re not the only players, but we certainly play a role. It’s an all-hands-on-deck effort from pharmacists, administration to our nursing staff and environmental staff; everybody is involved in getting this out. We have to set up the vaccination pods, we need support from other departments, and everyone is engaged in making sure our employees are getting vaccinated.

For me, with employee health, we’re engaged with every employee in the building. We’re also instrumental in getting the message out, encouraging folks to get the vaccine and dispelling any myths or rumors, and being available to support them.

For example, some employees might have an allergic reaction. It doesn’t mean they can’t get the second dose of vaccine, but we’ll get them an appointment with an allergist, so that when they do get the second dose, they’ll have expert insight. The allergist will let us know whether the employee should be getting the second dose, give us important information and resources, and help us leverage those resources so our employees are safe.