Physician-in-Chief's Message
March 19, 2020
Dear Colleagues,
 
Thank you for your continued commitment to caring for the children and families during this pandemic. Below you will see a video from the Today show highlighting our in-house testing.
UNC is certainly at the forefront in this area!
 UNC COVID Updates
 Inpatient Care
  • New Provider Notification Pathway and Process documents are now on the Pediatrics COVID-19 Clinical Resources site.
  • COVID Acute and COVID ICU pagers established and working well.
  • Multiple rule-outs but no confirmed COVID positive patients.
  • Grateful for the work of all the inpatient teams
 
Outpatient Care
  • We should be rescheduling all patients who do not need to be immediately seen in person. Check out the Tip Sheet to document instructions about cancelling/rescheduling.
  • Schedulers in the multispecialty clinics have started offering telephone visits to patients in place of being rescheduled. Please check your schedule on the day of clinic to see which patients will be in person or by phone or have completely cancelled.
  • New workflow for telehealth visits is being distributed to division chiefs today.
  • The COVID providers in clinic continue to help screen and treat patients who screen positive. There are very few of these in the specialty clinics now.

Peds Emergency Department

Telehealth
Please see below regarding tip sheet for telehealth visits. The landscape appears to be changing constantly, but many insurance carriers are covering telehealth more broadly during this period of social distancing, but coding will review each of the encounters alongside payor’s guidelines. All inquiries should be directed toward the SOM Compliance Office at 984-974-1017 or email Robin.Shuping@unchealth.unc.edu .
Please remember, with telephone encounters, TIME MUST BE DOCUMENTED in the note.
Emergency Childcare
UNC Health Care Task Force is exploring solutions to emergency childcare for healthcare workers in the UNC Health Care system and other locations in the Triangle. A site that provides resources and recommendations for childcare for healthcare workers launched yesterday - ChildCareNC.org . T his site lists childcare resources available now, and in the coming days, it will include information and guidance on childcare sites and availability in the triangle area of North Carolina. Public input and information is welcome. Please check it out and check back—this site is continually being updated with more resources.
Human Resources
Emergency Telework Practice (Level 2 of the Emergency Status Protocol) has been initiated for HCS employees.  Staff who do not work in direct patient care or who do not work in a support service that directly impacts patient care are now strongly encouraged to telework as approved by the COVID-19 Action Council . Pediatrics HCS were asked to complete the required teleworking agreement last week in anticipation of this event.
Ambiguity can be difficult and the approach to this pandemic is changing on a daily basis. For any concerns, please reach out to myself or others that are leading this effort.

On a happy note, our residency was ranked 18 th this year! Please congratulate Kenya McNeal-Trice and her team. Match Day is tomorrow!
 
Gratefully,
Stephanie
Cell: 919-417-3130