- AdventHealth
Physician leaders from the AdventHealth Central Florida Division recently published a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article outlining how clinical leaders moved beyond their traditional focus on quality and safety and drove change and innovation in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the state of Florida became one of the epicenters of the pandemic in the U.S. during the summer of 2021, AdventHealth was overwhelmed and stretched beyond capacity, Victor Herrera, MD, vice president and chief medical officer of AdventHealth Orlando, and Neil Finkler, MD, chief clinical officer of the AdventHealth Central Florida Division, explain in the NEJM’s Innovations in Health Care Delivery section.
“As clinical leaders, we developed, out of necessity, new knowledge in order to respond to the pandemic,” Finkler said. “This knowledge became our new skillset to aid in problem solving and it will be necessary for the next generation to implement in order to design the next version of health care.”
The two physician leaders enlisted the help of the entire clinical leadership team to identify five main areas that presented unique challenges and the lessons that emerged, such as:
- Using new data sources (e.g., the community positivity rate) to effectively forecast COVID-19 dynamics in the hospital setting
- Designing a COVID-19 Clinical Performance Dashboard to track actionable data and accountability on the fundamental clinical processes instead of only tracking outcomes
- Creating and leveraging external partnerships and developing new ways to interact with media to reduce the transmission and impact of COVID-19 through community education
- Learning to accept failure as part of innovation to transform care as well as adapting to a workforce transformed by the pandemic that’s burnt out
- Finding hidden health disparities, such as a digital literacy and/or language barrier, and problem solving to improve access to all populations
“In researching these best practices, COVID-19 has shown us where our strengths lie and how we can improve in the future,” Herrera said. “By sharing these insights with other physicians and clinicians through the NEJM, we hope our findings will be implemented across hospitals globally to improve patient outcomes.”
These focus areas also provided opportunities to acquire new skills and new knowledge, with the potential to redefine aspects of clinical leadership into the future.
Both Herrera and Finkler agree, in order to do this, organizational changes may be required to continue to provide clinical leaders with the necessary tools to improve and maintain their effectiveness in the post-pandemic world.
Recent News
To help bridge the gap and save more lives, AdventHealth and OurLegacy, east Central Florida’s federally designated organ procurement organization (OPO), recently opened an innovative, centralized and...
Through his leadership in The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), AdventHealth Healthcare Epidemiologist and Infection Control Officer Vincent Hsu, MD, MPH, FSHEA, FACP, has been...
Physician leaders from AdventHealth’s emergency department, infectious disease, inpatient, pediatrics and pharmacy teams all collaborated to develop a respiratory virus testing algorithm to assist...
Thoracic surgeon Colleen Gaughan, MD, and her team at AdventHealth Celebration, recently became one of the first in the country to incorporate targeted imaging agent Cytalux (pafolacianine) as part of...
Nearly half of U.S. physicians feel burned out, and the overwhelming majority cite professional stress as the primary contributor. In our latest Clinician’s View, AdventHealth Apopka Chief Medical...
On the newest Inspiring Wholeness podcast, Obie Diaz, local morning radio show host, shares how a routine physical eventually led to two open heart surgeries.
AdventHealth recently began piloting a new Genomics Risk Assessment for Cancer and Early Detection (GRACE) program that combines the use of digital mammography, artificial intelligence (AI) technology...
AdventHealth Celebration recently became the first hospital in Florida to use DoseRT® Cherenkov imaging plus AlignRT® technology and the first hospital globally to use the entire surface guided...
As the medical community works to better understand the rise in colorectal cancer among younger adults and how to prevent it, AdventHealth Colon and Rectal Surgeon Daniel J. Galante, DO, believes it...
As a physician and biomedical engineer, Dr. Stockwell finds deep fulfillment in providing primary care to underserved communities, most recently through a mission with AdventHealth Global Missions in...
AdventHealth Clinical Research Unit (CRU) Executive Director and Medical Director of Genitourinary Oncology Guru Sonpavde, MD, co-authored an article on the AMBASSADOR Phase III clinical trial results...
AdventHealth oncologist Mohamedtaki Tejani, MD, and gastroenterologist Irteza Inayat, MD, recently sat down to discuss the new Guardant Health blood test as a screening tool, including the benefits...