It was a sunny drive into Center City. The radio cut off as the call came in — the Chief Information Officer at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) was on the line. "The COVID-19 Incident Management Team (IMT) has been officially activated," she said, and our command center was now open. I changed routes, and headed to the University City campus.
The COVID-19 emergency has proven an exercise in leadership at all levels of the CHOP pediatric health system. Clinicians care for patients, while essential teams provide support. For non-clinical teams, the urgency has been ensuring that clinical workflows continue, adjusting services for the crisis, and securing the supply chain for all areas of hospital. These include: environmental services, security, facilities, nutrition and information services. A key to this has been how quickly our teams responded to the pandemic from an IT perspective.
It is important to note that response planning for pandemics like COVID-19 has been underway for months, with information services an active participant. The IMT consists of the incident commander, the executive administrator on-call, and key representatives from across the organization.
For IS, the response has focused on three main areas: ensuring that hospital operations and information security continue, delivering COVID-19 clinical care solutions, and providing remote connectivity, video and voice capability to thousands of employees whose work has been relocated.
Everything related to COVID-19 was, and still is, fluid. What we know is updating constantly, and teams must adapt to deliver myriad services to support clinical care. Ensuring hospital technology is delivered reliably and securely is always at the forefront of our efforts. We continue to place laser focus on increasing security threats, analysis, and triage that help protect CHOP and keep our patients, families, and employees safe. For clinical care, solution development — setting up equipment for new patient rooms in COVID-19 units, establishing employee testing sites, adding additional equipment and telehealth equipment — has taken precedence. For remote workers, we verified infrastructure capacity, licensing needs and continued 24x7 monitoring.
An IS command center was formed to identify, prioritize, and resolve technology issues. There were technical hiccups, of course, and challenges that required technology personnel to work around the clock. Close to 1,000 pieces of equipment were deployed in a two-week period, with remote access connections increasing by the thousands. The team's prior strategic work positioned CHOP to be able to accommodate thousands of immediate requests.
At the hospital, the team coordinated schedule rotations and diversified locations, and also developed procedures for handling equipment. Such procedures involved avoiding cardboard in work areas, wiping down all equipment, and practicing "practical" distancing when site-wide universal masking went into effect.
Given the fast-moving situation, we needed even more alternative plans for staffing and service delivery. Option B was engaging other teams within the organization that could help with desk side support. Still, the leadership team continued thinking of additional solutions: "What services could be done differently to alleviate work of on-site teams who had to ensure operations?" We worked through those questions to develop the best outcome for CHOP.
Emotions among our team members remain high. As leaders, we need to continue engaging our teams with a personal human connection, while still ensuring that services keep flowing. We have to recognize that worries span across work, home life, family, and the larger world. Adjusting to this and supporting teams has to be approached with consistent standards, and always with empathy. Daily huddles, video conversations, and all-hands meetings have become the norm, our connectedness a priority.
Grappling with this crisis has required CHOP to develop and execute new strategies on all levels. Technology at CHOP has transformed and rapidly adopting new technologies. Telehealth visits have jumped from <20 to over 1,600 visits a day. In a two-week period, the number of video conferences multiplied from 300 to almost 5,000! This growth has made both technologists and clinicians hopeful for increased agility in the future.
On a personal level, I have appreciated being able to support a world class pediatric health system. I am in awe of the leadership and the collaboration that I have seen on display. We keep rising to the occasion with excellence and compassion.