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Hospitals are short-staffed and families want answers — so what can leaders do? Assign liaison roles to nurses on leave, enabling them to share the burden of patient care with bedside nurses, while minimizing the risk of exposure, says CT Lin, MD.
In time, healthcare will eventually return to business as usual – at least, to some extent. But for now, “it’s all hands on deck,” says Adam Gale, who talks about what KLAS has learned about vendor offerings, and what they hope to find out.
When organizations are in crisis mode, it longer matters what lane individuals are usually in, says Stephanie Lahr, MD, CIO and CMIO at Monument Health. “We have to cross over and help people.”
By taking the time to learn the culture and get to know the people, a CIO is able to build a level of trust that can pay off significantly when crisis hits, said James Wellman in this podcast interview.
From delivering respirators and protective masks to hospitals, to providing training materials for medical professionals, the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition is pooling its resources to improve clinical outcomes and advocate for effective policies, says Dr. John Halamka.
One thing COVID-19 has demonstrated? The healthcare industry will bounce back, but it’s never going to be quite the same – and in some ways, that’s a positive, says Chuck Christian, CTO at Franciscan Health.
Although there are no definitive answers as to when social distancing restrictions will be lifted and businesses will reopen, one thing is clear: “We are in this for the long haul,” says Jennifer Dunphy, DrPH, Chief Population Health Officer at Royal Medical Group.
The best way to manage an environment in which things are constantly changing, and there is no blueprint? With a dynamic, agile approach that includes frequent huddles, says Tom Andriola, Vice Chancellor of IT at UC Irvine.
Although it was a pandemic that served as the catalyst for virtual care visits to take off, what’s just as critical is the fact that organizations like UCHealth already had the key pieces in place, said CMIO CT Lin.
When it comes to COVID-19, the problem isn’t a lack of information, but a lack of credible information, says Tom Andriola, who believes the onus is on health systems to “help people pragmatically make decisions that are going to keep them safe.”
