Abstract
New York City was the epicenter of the outbreak of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States. As a large, quaternary care medical center, NYU Langone Medical Center was one of many New York medical centers that experienced an unprecedented influx of patients during this time. Clinical leadership effectively identified, oriented, and rapidly deployed a "COVID Army," consisting of non-hospitalist physicians, to meet the needs of the patient influx. We share feedback from our providers on our processes and offer specific recommendations for systems experiencing a similar influx in the current and future pandemics. To assess the experiences and perceived readiness of these physicians (n = 183), we distributed a 32-item survey between March and June of 2020. Thematic analyses and response rates were examined to develop results. Responses highlighted varying experiences and attitudes of our frontline physicians during an emerging pandemic. Thematic analyses revealed a series of lessons learned, including the need to (1) provide orientations, (2) clarify roles/workflow, (3) balance team workload, (4) keep teams updated on evolving policies, (5) make team members feel valued, and (6) ensure they have necessary tools available. Lessons from our deployment and assessment are scalable at other institutions.
Highlights
New York City was the epicenter of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States, with over 92 000 hospitalizations and 29 000 confirmed deaths to date.[1]
Quaternary care medical center in New York, NYU Langone Medical Center was one of many New York medical centers that experienced an unprecedented influx of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic
All 272 faculty physicians who volunteered to work in the COVID Army received a survey
Summary
New York City was the epicenter of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States, with over 92 000 hospitalizations and 29 000 confirmed deaths to date.[1]. The medicine census (intensive care unit [ICU] and acute) increased from a maximum of 200 patients to a peak of 550. The number of acute medicine teams increased from 12 during normal operations to a maximum of 29 over 3 weeks. To care for these patients, we formed a “COVID Army” – providers from medicine, surgery, and other specialties who volunteered to work on the inpatient wards during the surge. Identify faculty: Using REDCap, we surveyed the entirety of the NYU Langone clinical faculty for willingness to volunteer, ability to lead a ward team and/or an ICU team as well as the presence of an authorized medical exemption (including age). Faculty who participated opted to do this instead of outpatient telemedicine or other assignments, and were not forced to participate if they felt unable
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