COVID at one-year mark: How we’re innovating

After a year of adapting to the pandemic, USA Health now is looking ahead to what changes and innovations prompted by COVID-19 will become standard as we deliver healthcare to our community.

“In general, what we learned from the pandemic is that it is very efficient to bring care to the patient,” said Michael Chang, M.D., chief medical officer for USA Health. “For instance, the pandemic taught us that we can vaccinate 400 people at a church in four hours.”

Chang was referring to a community-based vaccine clinic – a collaboration among area leaders, USA Health and the City of Mobile – that was held at Yorktown Missionary Baptist Church in Mobile on Feb. 23. “The old model involved patients going to their doctor’s office or a drugstore for vaccinations,” he said. “This is more patient-centric.”

Mass clinics, including drive-through COVID-19 testing and vaccinations at the Mobile Civic Center, are among the biggest lasting innovations from the past year, serving thousands of people. Drive-through care may become a permanent fixture or enlisted to defend against seasonal disease, Chang said. In addition, the now-familiar use of face masks, social distancing and handwashing can be used when needed to prevent non-COVID illness, he said.

Also high on the list of important COVID innovations is a shift to telemedicine.

In 2020, between March 17 and April 15, USA Health transitioned 34 percent of its outpatient clinic visits to online visits. Even more impressive, 100 percent of pre-operative and pre-anesthesia visits went virtual in just 14 days – an innovation that Chang said is here to stay.

“In the ‘old world,’ patients would come to a pre-anesthesia clinic, get educational materials and labs drawn, and go home. Then they would come back on the day of surgery,” said Chang, who is a trauma surgeon.

Now, when a patient is scheduled for surgery at USA Health, a surgical navigator conducts patient education using telemedicine and schedules a drive-through COVID test for the patient prior to surgery. “It saves the patient a trip to the hospital,” Chang said.

Likewise, many internal meetings at USA Health were moved to Zoom for social distancing reasons, but the shift also saved time for USA Health personnel who normally would have to travel to other facilities. That trend might be here to stay. “I noticed right away that our meeting times were shorter,” said Lisa Mestas, chief nursing officer for USA Health. “When meetings were in person, we also had to build in travel time. Now I can meet from my phone.”