As most of you know, we have been open throughout the Coronavirus crisis. Like most medical offices, however, we switched our ill visits to a telemedicine platform to protect the safety of our patients and staff during the height of the pandemic. We did continue to see healthy babies, and then others, in the office for their regular check-ups and vaccinations. At this time, we are pleased to announce that we are ready to bring some of those urgent visits back to the office.
If you’ve been to the office lately, you have probably noticed many changes. (See previous post) Everyone is wearing protective gear. The waiting room is closed. The doctors are wearing scrubs and we are cleaning everything way more often. Most recently, we have made some changes to the office HVAC systems. We can now vent rooms more quickly when seeing patients with concerning respiratory symptoms and we have added high grade HEPA filtration units throughout the office. We are even beginning some appointments by telephone before patients enter the building in order to shorten the time people spend within an enclosed space. We want our office, as much as possible, to remain a low risk environment and we want you to feel safe when you come to visit us.
For now, we will continue to use telemedicine to provide the initial provider evaluation for patients with fever, respiratory symptoms, vomiting/diarrhea and known COVID positive contacts. We have an outdoor tent that we will be using, weather permitting, to provide further evaluation and testing when appropriate. However, having made many changes and finally gathered a supply of necessary PPE, we are bringing all other patients back into the office starting this week. Please bear with us while we work through the logistics of our new office flow. (There are many new protocols to follow and there will be growing pains!) Still, we think it is the right thing to do at this time and we are excited to begin creating a new normal for our practice and our community.
Unfortunately, it appears SARS CoV-2 will be with us for a while and we are going to need to learn to work around it as safely as possible. Many traditional habits of practice will not work well in this new environment. We appreciate your patience and your trust. We appreciate you wearing masks when you come to the office. We will continue to work through this together. Stay safe and stay well!