HJAR Mar/Apr 2021

10 MAR / APR 2021 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS   called to cancel their appointments. Many canceled out of fear and anxiety, others just wanting time to absorb the news we all had just been told. March 11 will always be a pivotal point for all of us in Arkansas; many of us in healthcare will clearly remember what we were doing that day. Many surreal and defining moments occur in our lifetimes like when the airplanes hit the Twin Towers or the explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle. We all can recall our actions and our emotions. These moments are indelibly marked in our thoughts for a lifetime and often numb us to what is really happening. On March 11, 2020, I was in my monthly Vistage meeting, discussing key topics with several CEO peers. Vistage has often been described as group therapy for business owners, executives and CEOs and allows me as a leader to share challenges, lean on others with similar problems and sometimes simply commiserate our plights. As I stepped out of the meeting to take the call from our doctor, the Vistage group was just discussing contingency COVID-19 plans for our respective businesses. When I stepped back in many in the room had already received a tweet or other breaking news through social media or news outlets about the presumptive case. It seemed odd and strangely coincidental that the call occurred at the same time as my meeting Working with doctors is both exciting and fulfilling, and being around really smart scientists who have a passion for caring for people is also very rewarding. In my long career in physician practice management, I have served in a variety of settings ranging from academic medicine, hospitals and health systems and private practice. During this 27-year career, I have received many memorable calls; however, of all those calls, none was more jarring than the one I received from one of our physicians on March 11, 2020. This was ground zero for our state as the very first presumptive COVID- 19 case was reported in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I listened in disbelief as our doctor related what he knew about the case and the patient at the hospital. He had performed some cases that morning at the hospital and was concerned about the safety of our staff and patients and also for himself. In my mind, COVID-19 was some other state’s problem, something I heard on the news stations or read in the local newspaper. This was not supposed to happen in Arkansas; yet, here it was, front and center, and the reality of the situation hit me like a freight train. I immediately told the physician to cancel patients scheduled for that afternoon at our outpatient clinic and told our staff to be very transparent about why we were rescheduling. However, news travels fast inArkansas and many patients had already with fellow leaders. We paused to process that life-changing news and many of us knew that our lives would not be the same going forward. On the day following the initial presumptive case and recognizing that community spread of COVID-19 was inevitable, I remember assembling our leadership team and discussing how our clinic was going to address the impending challenges. We started by discussing how other urology clinics around the country more impacted by COVID were already facing those challenges. There was a tremendous amount of transparency, collaboration of thoughts and genuine concern for each other as we discussed our options. I was amazed at the teamwork I was experiencing and thankful to have such a dynamic group of individuals to work alongside. Our clinical leadership team took charge of ensuring our patients were notified of the many safety measures we were implementing beyond our rigorous standards and established practices. Within two days of the initial news, we had our expanded telemedicine program fully functional to continue to serve our chronic care patients. The following week, we had instituted a drive-thru check-in procedure, which allowed patients to stay in their cars until it was time for their scheduled ANYONE CAN HOLD THE HELM WHEN THE SEA IS CALM, BUT GREAT LEADERS CAN NAVIGATE THE ROUGHEST OF STORMS.