My Legacy Health Focuses on Being The Most Secure Place to Receive and Deliver Care
We immediately got to work on the problem at hand: COVID-19. We established emergency operations centers that focused on the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. We also reviewed and modified hospital procedures. Finally, my legacy health we determined how to quickly and extensively conduct COVID testing. To keep our staff informed about new information and policy changes, we held many huddles. We discussed the issues that needed to be addressed and how they could be solved. We assessed the risks and examined the infrastructure. This framework was created to help us navigate the pandemics in the early stages of March, April, and May 2020.
We reflected on what we had learned from the COVID outbreak that subsided in June. We talked about what procedures, protocols and tasks we would like to continue after the pandemic. To help us reach our goal of providing safest care, we kept some of the infrastructure that we had built in our operations centres.
It’s still difficult, even after all these months. We are seeing Watkins Health Center more COVID-positive patients than in spring. The perfect storm of flu season beginning, high levels of COVID and exhaustion among our front-line staff is causing us to be overwhelmed. Our ability is limited. Our healthcare workers have had to deal with all of this. We advise people to continue hand washing, masks and social distancing from gatherings. We will do our best, if people do their part.
Despite 2020 being difficult and challenging, we have learned some positives as we navigate the pandemic. We realized that we are very adept at quickly identifying, raising, and solving problems after navigating the first wave of COVID. We can now solve problems that used to take us weeks, instead of taking us days. The biggest impact the pandemic will have is the ability to quickly identify and solve problems. We are now in a better place.
A positive outcome of the pandemic was that we have seen a decrease in people visiting the emergency department for non-emergency treatment. While some of my legacy health issues can be addressed in the emergency room, others can be handled more efficiently via telehealth, urgent or clinic visits. This pandemic has a positive outcome in that healthcare resources can be better utilized for the right issues. This increases accessibility to healthcare for all.
Another positive outcome of COVID is the increased collaboration and coordination in Clark County’s health and public sector communities. My Legacy Health, Peace Health and The Vancouver Clinic have had constructive, productive conversations. We also collaborated with Clark County Public Health. We’re all doing our best to help our community. We have built relationships to collaborate on public health issues.
