Theresa Haley ‘86 Prepares and Protects VA Hospital

Throughout the fall, The University of Scranton sports information office will be profiling former Royal student-athletes who are on the front lines in the battle against the spread of COVID-19. Read this story and others, here. Their fourth profile features Theresa (Kozlusky) Haley, a 1986 graduate former volleyball letterwinner.

During any student's undergraduate and postgraduate studies, they learn of situations that may come about in their prospective careers that will test their knowledge.

For Theresa Haley, it seems she’s prepared for over 30 years for the moment in time we are experiencing in 2020.

A former volleyball student-athlete and 1986 graduate with a degree in Medical Technology from The University of Scranton, Haley went on to earn a Certification in Infection Prevention and Control (CIC).

With this in tow, she eventually worked her way up to a position as an Iinfection preventionist at the Lebanon VA Medical Center where she serves as an expert on practical methods of preventing and controlling the spread of infectious disease. The hospital, as every VA does in the country, serves military veterans and is a part of the largest integrated health care system in the country, consisting of 170 medical centers.

As you can imagine, Haley’s life since March has been busy.

Right from the start of the pandemic, Haley and her team at the Lebanon VA went to work outfitting the hospital to prepare for the worst - a COVID outbreak in the community.

One of Haley’s main responsibilities from the start was repurposing a former intensive care unit into a “respiratory isolation unit" to treat potential coronavirus patients. The unit was equipped with an anteroom where staff members clean their hands and don protective equipment, including a mask that has an air filtration system. The unit is set up for negative pressure, which means the air goes through a filter before being released out of the environment.

Read on, here.