Updates for the Community
June 22, 2020
Dear Community Pediatric Healthcare Providers,
Greetings from the Community Practice Advisory Council. June has been busy for us, both in our practices, and in our CPAC work. Across our sites, which are academic, hospital based, independent, and FQHCs, we were seeing 60-90% of usual volume at the beginning of June. We have continued to respond to COVID 19 by separating sick and well visits, continuing universal masking, and keeping telehealth options available to our families.
CCHMC services have also opened up. All CCHMC Satellite locations and Urgent Care Centers are open (except for Mason Urgent Care). Visit volumes in CCHMC specialties are at about 80% with 50% telehealth. Faculty and leadership have encouraged us to communicate with them using Physician Priority Link if a patient needs to be seen more urgently. It is also helpful to note this information in your referral.
Although our offices are beginning to look a little more typical, we are all acutely aware of the need to remain vigilant and prepare for fall and winter, including influenza vaccination planning. Working with POE and faculty, CPAC will continue to discuss what information is helpful for PCPs in our ongoing pediatric response to COVID-19 in our region. The weekly CCHMC emails and external website resource will continue to provide updates.
In addition to discussing COVID-19 recovery, our CPAC group was able to spend some valuable time with Drs Todd Ponsky and Stacey Ishman. Dr. Ponsky is a pediatric surgeon whose research interest is in how medical providers stay current in the modern era. We were excited to be able to work with him and the Division of Surgery in producing two educational modules so far on ENT and Orthopedics, as well as provide input on the type and style of content that would be relevant for a pediatric provider. You can view the modules here. Thanks to Dr. Rick Berger, our East Central rep who worked with the Division of Orthopedics on the most recent module. We are also continuing to work on the topics and content for the Community Practice Support tools which you can find here.
CPAC was also able to spend some time this month discussing where we would like to focus our efforts moving forward. Communication regarding more urgent TRANSITIONS of care, whether it is newborn to outpatient, PCP to ED, or hospital to home is one of those areas. We will build on work that was led by my predecessor, Camille Graham MD, and the Hospital Medicine Division.
Finally, as we all take time to reflect on recent events in our country, we realize it is important that we feel comfortable listening and talking with our patients, families and staff about the effects of racism. This issue of Synapse includes guidance for those conversations developed by CCHMC psychology faculty. The American Academy of Pediatrics also has a well written article on how to talk to kids about racial bias here.
As always, your regional physician leader and jPhysician Outreach and Engagement representative value your input and ideas. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me or them. You can email me directly at shelly.voet@cchmc.org.
Shelly F. Voet MD
Pediatric Associates PSC
CCHMC Executive Community Physician Leader