UW Medicine CEO: How the pandemic spurred lasting changes at the research powerhouse

As COVID-19 swept across the U.S. in the early months of 2020, some Washington-state long-term care facilities faced immediate outbreaks.

"Our hospitals were quickly filling with primarily elderly patients at that time," said UW Medicine CEO Paul Ramsey, MD. "Our system was forced to quickly develop multiple protocols and practices."

Fortunately the Seattle-based health system, which comprises three hospitals, happened to be working on the Seattle Flu Study, which focused on respiratory illnesses.

"We were testing all respiratory viruses and doing a genomic analysis that enabled us to discover one of the first cases — perhaps the first case — of community transmission of COVID-19 in the country."

In March of 2020, the health system managed to obtain emergency use authorization of its own PCR test model, expediting COVID-19 testing turnaround times throughout the state.

As the pandemic spawned a greater awareness of equity issues in hospital systems across the country, UW Medicine merged two programs to form what is now the system's Office of Healthcare Equity, which opened in July 2020.

"I think the pandemic has allowed us to make progress faster in more areas than we were making before," Dr. Ramsey said. 

"We must continue to make progress with healthcare equity, and we are committed to being an anti-racist institution. That's difficult work. We're working to identify policies, procedures and systems that have been in place for many years."

Dr. Ramsey and his team are currently focused on adapting knowledge gained in the last year to UW Medicine's infrastructure and research.

"I do think the post-pandemic time will be a very exciting time for changes in research," he said. "There will be changes in the practice of healthcare that will enable us to do it with a more value-based approach."

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