A Message from Shelly Voet, MD
August 25, 2021
Hello to my fellow pediatric providers. Thanks for reading this issue of Synapse. I wanted to highlight some of the content, as well as give you an update on our Community Practice Advisory Council work.
1. The CCHMC medical staff community is mourning the loss of three of our own – Dr. Jim Heubi from the Division of Gastroenterology, Dr. Tom Maloney from TriHealth/Group Health, and retired faculty Dr. George Hug. Medical Staff Services can accept and forward notes of condolence mailed to them here: Medical Staff Services, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, 3333 Burnet Avenue, Cincinnati OH 45229
2. It is also a difficult time for all of us in healthcare as we face the fourth surge in the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last several weeks our region has continued to see a steep incline in the number of cases, hospitalizations, and ICU admissions. Local health systems are increasingly concerned about how this rate of rise will impact the ability to provide care for all patients. Testing volume, infections, and hospitalization have also been increasing in children. CCHMC ED and Urgent Care are seeing winter volumes due to COVID concerns and other viruses circulating. Special thanks to all of you who are trying to ensure care occurs in the medical home as much as possible by adding extra hours, vaccinating your patients, swabbing for COVID in your offices and sharing the CCHMC high volume/“save my spot”/ wait time information with your families.
During this time, CPAC is grateful to continue to coordinate efforts with CCHMC leadership, the Physician Outreach team, the lab, and the Division of Gen/Community Peds. This month we shared employee COVID-19 medical exemption/delay considerations; templates of letters for school boards about universal masking; and a masking statement for specialists and PCPs. Physician outreach maintains these updates at Cincy PCP Covid Updates. Thanks to all of you who communicated with your school boards to encourage universal masking to help keep kids in school and reduce transmission.
On a positive note, nationally 380 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given. Full FDA approval of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine occurred this week. Children ages 5-11 years will likely be eligible for vaccination before the end of this year. Finally, FDA and ACIP gave approval for third doses of mRNA vaccines for immunocompromised (transplant and similarly immunocompromised) patients. They have not recommended a “booster” dose for immunocompetent people at this time.
Besides our COVID-19 work, CPAC has continued to work on improving communication with specialists. We now have 5 divisions (Urology, Dermatology, Psychiatry, Psychology and Neurology) working with us and IS on a consult letter improvement initiative. We are also continuing conversations with the Division of Hospital Medicine. HM is successfully completing calls to notify PCPs about admissions about 85% of the time. They also welcome incoming calls from PCPs regarding patients on their service. PPL can connect you with the attending covering your patient (afternoons are best). If you have general feedback on communication about a HM patient, please reach out directly to Dr. Michelle Parker at Michelle.parker@cchmc.org.
Thanks again for all you do for children and their families.
Shelly Voet MD (shelly.voet@cchmc.org)
Pediatric Associates PSC
CCHMC Executive Community Physician Leader