I wanted to share my experiences with those who maybe interested in how they can adjust their office to make their patients and staff continue to be feel safe.
Well.. after speaking with quite a few specialists I realized that many were not seeing patients and many of their patients were going to urgent care for treatment and in return the urgent cares were doing TELEMEDICINE!! That’s crazy!!
The best advice I could give them is to reopen your office… lead.. make sure your patients see the safety measures you have in place and communicate daily with staff as things can change multiple times a day. It starts at the top. Many of them were fearful for themselves.
I suggested they stay on top of CDC guidelines and implement their own safety measures. I have been in touch with both the DOH and the Governor’s office and I was impressed that my concerns and suggestions were well received. I know many of us are in different areas of the county and we are observing different scenarios. But fear can be over come with communication. That is really what has worked for me.

One of the major challenges during these trying times has been being aware our staff’s needs and acknowledging their role during this Pandemic. As Physicians having to deal with multiple issues it is easy to lose sight of those who support us (our Staff) as we care for the Community. We can forget that they too are dealing with several challenges and need support.

These fears maybe Financial- of being furloughed, hours being cut or even worse being let go. There maybe added financial burdens of paying for Child Care with the school closures, or loss of Income as other Partners at home may have their jobs cut.

Fears of added Time Commitments- like having to leave the office to get necessities for their homes or take time to help with Home Schooling et.

So have made recognizing the needs of our Office Family has been one of our priorities.

At the onset of the Pandemic we had a full Office/organizational Meeting where we addressed several of these issues. Staff was assured that Hours and Payroll were going to be maintained.Emergency Funds were made available to offset unexpected added expenses like child care. Schooling and Child care were discussed and several innovative solutions were addressed and implemented.

We have continually encouraged an environment of mutual respect and shared need irrespective of whatever function an employee has in the office. “Please” and “Thank You’s” are mandatory. Social needs are addressed with either regularly scheduled events like “Taco Tuesday” where we share a common meal and interact as colleagues and where I am usually teased; or impromptu shared moments. These have maintained morale during these trying times.This has resulted in a caring environment patients and staff.

We have become more cohesive as an organization by having a shared purpose of being in this together

I am confident that we will emerge from this stronger as we have learned to depend on each other and ourselves. This is our silver lining!

Stay Healthy and Safe
Saeed

Doctors and staff, David Klebonis knows about Telemedicine more than anyone I know. If you have any questions, please ask here and I am sure he will be glad to help you. In any case Telemedicine is so important now and we all need to be experts in it. This is survival .

Great idea
I think we can contribute, exchange ideas and Learn from each other.
I am Still doing telemedicine and it is going well.
I might open for few selected patients to be seen for the first few weeks (the ones I know are vulnerable and need to be seen) and do combined telemedicine and actual visits.
I will not keep more than one patient in the waiting room.
Will keep everyone posted on how it goes

Doctors,
We have added this forum for us to exchange ideas and help each other with our experiences.
As we move forward I believe this can become a great resource for all of us.
I urge you to use this as a sounding board and the more we use it the more useful it will become for us.

We are a large enough organization that it we can support such a forum, specially in these strange and unusual times when we need to stand together as a community to address and fight the challenges ahead of us.

As things change for COVID and so will the expectations from us.This is a constantly changing scenario where we need to be at the cutting edge of what is going on. No one doctor can alone manage what is going on, the news and data is immense and can be overwhelming. Federal and state policies are changing on a weekly basis- There will be new treatments, soon(hopefully) there will be a vaccine and discussions about it, all of which can be addressed here.
The possibilities of exchange of ideas are are endless. This is not just another place to log in, this will be a place for us to get new ideas and empower ourselves, so we can help our patients and provide them the best possible care.

Rohit Dandiya, MD

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• This topic was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Alexis Miron.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Alexis Miron.
• This topic was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Brian Chaney.