Happy Spring! I hope everyone is enjoying some nice weather, daffodils and tulips, and a country emerging from two years of pandemic fatigue. I traveled to Boston for the American Academy of Dermatology annual meeting a few weeks ago and it was so refreshing to see colleagues face to face and enjoy social gatherings and meals together. QualDerm hosted a nice gathering of current and potential new physicians, and our reputation in the Dermatology world has remained stellar, allowing us to attract the best and brightest providers. Thank you everyone for the role you play in maintaining our high standards for excellent patient care and physician support by our teams. And please refer any colleagues who may be interested in joining our team at any level of the organization.
Omicron BA.2 variant is causing about 75% of Covid-19 cases in the US, but so far, there are no signs of a looming surge in cases. Although “BA.2 has become dominant, overall numbers of cases are still decreasing, says Dr. Jessica Justman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.” Should this trend continue, “as some models predict, it will mark the first time a viral strain has taken over in the US without causing an increase in Covid-19 cases.”
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The striking and most welcome streak of US Covid hospitalizations going down every single day since mid-January continues, now well below the prior pandemic nadir, and even after facing BA.2 variant dominance in parts of the country weeks ago.
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The original BA.1 Omicron surge in the Northeast US was >1.5 x that of United Kingdom, which may explain how natural immunity in US is higher than UK and results in fewer hospitalizations.
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The Omicron surge with BA.2 has started to impact our clinics once again, with numerous providers and staff members testing positive. Please remain vigilant with your distancing and masking during the workday so that exposures do not result in quarantines for patients or colleagues.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a second booster dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines for people >50 yo and certain immunocompromised individuals. There remains debate about this strategy and most experts would not advise young, healthy people, particularly those with both vaccine and natural immunity, to get a 2nd booster now. They would recommend waiting until the fall/winter when the next surges would be expected and when vaccines can be better tailored to the dominant strain. Note these current mRNA boosters from Pfizer and Moderna are still targeting the original C-19 strain.
The following graph shows the population of people who would most likely benefit from a 2nd booster = age >50 and immunocompromised or other health conditions like obesity that are more likely to cause complications, hospitalization or death. Note the significant positive impact for 2nd booster in people >60 years old.
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- A report from the Commonwealth Fund estimates that the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program “prevented 2.2 million deaths, 17 million hospitalizations and 66.1 million additional infections through March 2022.” The report’s model “estimated that the daily peak of deaths pre-Omicron, and without vaccination, would have exceeded 24,000 per day, far surpassing the actual peak of 4,300 per day...during the winter of 2021.” The model also suggests “nearly $900 billion in associated health care costs” have been saved. Of course, a vaccine program that reached more people and created less controversy would have reduced these costs and problems even further. Let’s hope our government agencies learn from this experience since future COVID-19 surges and other epidemics are expected.
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Enhancing The Patient Experience
Our new QualDerm-wide initiative to enhance the Patient Experience through all phases of the care journey is well on its way. Dr Dan Pearce from The Skin Surgery Center in NC is our clinical lead and chairs our provider subcommittee, which met last week to kick-off the project. Dr Pearce is passionate about service excellence and I’ve witnessed and admired his dedication each day as we work together in clinic. I thank him for spearheading this effort along with our practice support leaders.
Overall, our patient satisfaction ratings are excellent across the company and QualDerm providers enjoy a 4.8/5.0 average score from our patient surveys and online ratings. But, in the spirit of constant self-reflection and service improvement, we are going to examine processes at all patient touchpoints in order to identify best practices and implement them with our teams. Everyone in QDP will have an opportunity to contribute ideas for your own functional unit, since we recognize that ‘boots on the ground’ teammates will know best how to improve the patient experience where they are involved. Please think about how we can exceed patient expectations at all phases of our encounters and share your thoughts with supervisors and leaders.
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Modernizing Medicine/EMA
Finally, I am pleased to report that our EMR and practice management system transition to Modernizing Medicine/EMA has been proceeding very smoothly so far in Ohio, our first market. This massive company-wide project will benefit us all, but will require some patience during the transition. I want to especially express my gratitude to Josh Metzger and his IT and integration teammates who are performing the heavy-lifting behind the scenes. All our providers and support staff who have used EMA prefer it to our current NexTech EMR so we are very confident that this is the right move for QualDerm at this time. So please stay patient and positive and we will all get through this with flying colors.
Please continue to stay safe and I wish you all a wonderful week filled with sunshine and rekindled relationships as we emerge from the pandemic hibernation.
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