Role flexibility | Balance necessity of redeployment with respect for individuals' personal and family situations Recognize and adapt to shifts in community's health care needs Identify and use existing expertise within the department Quickly create structures to uptrain and support individuals in new or different roles
| Identify providers who need medical accommodations Understand the universe of clinical needs that need to be covered by the team Acknowledge unavoidable losses including disruption of residency program, with commitment to support overall learning plans Use consistent systems to determine how roles are distributed across department Reassign time from suspended activities (administration, education, research) to clinical support Plan for several layers of sick coverage
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Communication | Maintain connection between socially distanced colleagues Rapid dissemination of information Reduce anxiety by discussing upcoming changes Feedback on and troubleshooting of new structures and processes Recognize a range of contributions from providers and staff in different roles
| Frequent leadership huddles with medical directors and residency leadership WhatsApp thread for rapid administrative communications eg, sick call coverage Daily departmental e-mails that incorporate team photos, shout-outs, and quotes with well wishes from primary care patients Weekly provider meetings for hospitalists and for primary care physicians
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Responsiveness | Adopt and/or apply clinical skills in high demand during COVID-19 surge Reorient community health services to match patient and community needs Provide support to a hospital system under unprecedented stress
| Identify and disseminate educational resources early and on an ongoing basis Leverage family medicine and specialist faculty for teaching on novel or newly salient clinical skills Communicate clearly with operational leadership to support system-wide planning Create strong relationships with experienced colleagues for coaching and/or consultation Iterate primary care team-based workflows to meet new and shifting demands
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Safety and wellness | | Ensure personal protective equipment (PPE) is consistently available at point of care Implement “buddy system” to ensure providers including residents consistently follow proper PPE protocols Deploy family physicians together as teams, instead of dispersing them in redeployment throughout the medical center Include standard time off and sick coverage Address concrete needs for hospital teams such as food, transportation, parking, extra scrubs
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