Page 27 - White Plains Hospital Annual Report 2020-2021

The critical status of so many patients, however, was something they all needed to adjust to. “I spent my days off studying ventilator management and brushing up on ICU-level care,” shares Dr. Kristina Krecko, who started at WPH just a few months before the onset of the pandemic. The doctors also had to learn to work around necessary protocol changes due to COVID-19. “We had to change the way we practiced based on the limitations that the virus imposes on patient care,” Dr. Farrell says, pointing by example to things like the timing of when to order a CT scan. “You have to know that your scan will be done not exactly when you need it, but at the end
of the day because it’s a COVID patient and they will contaminate the room,” she explains.
Another major shift for
these doctors was the level
of their communication
with patients’ families.
Because of visitation
limits due to the virus,
Dr. Krecko explains,
“we made it a priority
to be as patient-focused
as possible, spending
a large portion of our
day calling or doing
video conference calls with family members to give them updates.” They were also constantly faced with dramatic scenarios of sharing the worst news with family members. Dr. Cook recalls one elderly patient, whom, she says, “came in walking and talking and shortly thereafter was completely decompensated, and within 24 hours he had passed. Trying to explain to his family what had happened and trying to console them was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do,” she notes.
There were high points, too, the doctors say, noting the patients who spent weeks on ventilators and made it off the COVID unit, heading to rehabilitation and eventually home. “We saw them when they wanted to give up, but we were their cheerleaders and reinforced that they had to fight. To know we saved their lives really stands out,” notes Dr. Cook.
The hospitalists all cite the support from their fellow staff members and the hospital leadership as crucial to being able to perform the way they did. “The communication between all the teams at the Hospital has been incredible,” says Dr. Farrell. “We were always
running through the pros and cons of different treatment modalities and sharing experiences that came up with different patients to help figure things out.” And, adds Dr. Howlette, “we could not have done what we did without the support of the nursing staff. The effort and care and emotional support they put into everything they do is on another level.”
The willingness of Hospi- tal leadership to embrace innovative approaches was
another important success factor, Dr. Howlette says. For example, when a medication called baricitinib re- ceived FDA emergency use authorization, Dr. Howlette thought it could benefit a lot of the COVID patients, so he says, “I reached out to the higher-ups about it and they were very receptive; we were quickly able to offer the medication. There really has been tremendous synergy amongst all levels.”
That synergy, they all say, was a key factor in their ability to save lives.
“We were their cheerleaders and reinforced that they had to fight. To know we saved their lives really stands out.”
— DR. GINA COOK —
2020-2021 ANNUAL REPORT
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