Life in a primary care practice during the COVID-19 pandemic - Week 1

As we all navigate the uncharted waters of the COVID-19 pandemic we recognize the need for collaboration and support amongst members of the primary care community. We are honored to work with an amazing group of providers, care teams and other organizations.

This blog begins a weekly series, highlighting the celebrations and struggles of a small independent primary care clinic, located in Colorado Springs. They are sharing their good news, top priorities and needs with us. Thank you for sharing!

Week 1 -  Status on April 15, 2020

Good News (Accomplishments) 
At this point telemedicine is running like a well-oiled machine. We are using Updox as our telemedicine platform. Telemedicine visits are designated with a color that really stands out in the schedule. Heidi (our admin. assistant) goes through the schedule and sends consents to the patients.  She makes sure we receive all consents back prior to the visit time. This is documented in the schedule so that all staff and providers can easily see that the visits are ready. Everything is in place for when the provider calls the patient. Currently about 40% of our visits are telemedicine visits. 

Team Care (Self-Care/Support)
Right now, one of our biggest self-care priorities is to support staff members, who are also parents and trying to help their children with distance learning. Each provider has a designated admin day, where they normally go over labs, radiology reports and get paperwork done. Since we are only seeing about 55% of our regular patients, the admin day is not needed currently. Providers are taking these days off. Support staff has the option to take the time off as well to help their kids with distance learning. Our staff has found that this really helps with the stress level. The staff members without kids have been offered a day off as well just for their mental health. This is optional and only if people want this time off. We are trying our best to keep everyone working the hours they need in order to be able continue their lifestyle. 

Top Priority
Our top Priority this week is the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)loan. We started the process on April 4th and have completed the first 4 steps. We are hoping we get the final documents for signing this week. This has definitely been a process! 

What we need  
We are using telemedicine and that has helped increase our patient visits, but we are only about 55% of our usual volume. Our goal is to make sure we are reaching out to our highest risk population and chronic care patients to get telemedicine visits set up. These are patients, who we want to keep out of the hospital and Emergency Departments (EDs) during this time. By staying in touch and making sure they have all their medications and good care plans in place, we can help keep them safe and healthy. This week we need to create a good process to meet this goal. 

We look forward to the discussions and comments that this sharing will spark. We want to thank each of you for continuing to provide exceptional care to our community, especially during this exceptional time!

Stay tuned for week 2!

Blog Series:

Week 1: https://www.healthteamworks.org/news/life-primary-care-practice-during-covid-19-pandemic-week-1
Week 2 and 3: https://www.healthteamworks.org/news/life-primary-care-practice-during-covid-19-pandemic-%E2%80%93-week-2-and-3
Week 4: https://www.healthteamworks.org/news/life-primary-care-practice-during-covid-19-pandemic-%E2%80%93-week-4
Week 5: https://www.healthteamworks.org/news/life-primary-care-practice-during-covid-19-pandemic-%E2%80%93-week-5
Week 6: https://www.healthteamworks.org/news/life-primary-care-practice-during-covid-19-pandemic-%E2%80%93-week-6