Eyeworld

30 | EYEWORLD | APRIL 2020 COVID-19 NEWS YOU CAN USE ASCRS NEWS colleagues is to stay home as much as you can with your family. The worldwide coronavirus (COVID-19) pan- demic is unprece- dented in my life- time. No one who lived through the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 is alive today, but it was even worse, with an estimated 40 million deaths. Early outcomes, as far as mitigation and medical management, are in from several counties including China, South Korea, and Taiwan. In other countries, including the U.S., we are just entering the exponential phase of increasing cases, both in deaths and, fortunately, recoveries each day. There is much to learn by studying the course of this pandemic in coun- tries ahead of us in onset and resolution. The rise in cases appears to last 4–6 weeks and the recovery another 4–6 weeks. In total, it is about a 3-month process. So in regard to practice management, we can expect to have reduced schedules in our clinics and ASCs for March, April, and much of May, gear up in June, and be very busy July–December. We at Minnesota Eye Consultants, open today only for emergency and sight-threatening disease management, are planning to stay home and work hard through the summer. The goal right now is to prevent the acute care hospitals from being overwhelmed by so many patients in respiratory distress that there are not enough beds, personnel, and respirators to care for them. We must attempt to flatten the curve of increasing citizens infected and also reduce the number of highly vulnerable individuals infected. The most powerful tool is "social distanc- ing." In a nutshell: Stay home and stay well. If you become ill, you still stay home until you are main OR does around 100 cases a day. But on a day in late March, there were two cases. We have taken any physician over the age of 70 and are not allowing them to see patients for any reason. There are six people affected. We have about 100 ophthalmologists in the practice, and on any given day, only 10 are see- ing patients. We have seven ODs in the practice, and they are not working at all. Our biggest problem is we have had to close three offices because a staff member was exposed to someone at home with COVID-19, and we were forced to move to another of- fice. The only offices that are open have retina capability. We have had to furlough many of the staff. Partners are not taking a paycheck, and associ- ates are continuing to be paid based on pro- ductivity (which is not a lot). We are continuing health insurance for all. Our management is doing an exceptional job, and they could write a book about how to respond to a crisis. I have an update twice a day with our management leadership, and we keep our lines of communication open with physicians and staff through frequent emails and personal calls when needed. New York is exploding with new cases, and there is a sense of dread as hospitals are being overrun with new cases. Keeping the subways, theaters, and schools open so long was, in my opinion, a bad decision that is now affecting the entire population. We are taking Draconian steps, but I think they are necessary, and we are confident we will come out the other side stronger than ever, but there is a good deal of pain right now. Most importantly, none of our staff or physicians has tested positive yet. In summary, this is a time of concern in ophthalmic practices, and the key to our success is to limit exposure and continue our vigilant ac- tion plan to stay abreast of the Centers for Dis- ease Control and Prevention and local depart- ment of health guidelines as they are released. The American Academy of Ophthalmology and ASCRS are sending out updates that very effectively detail the steps that should be taken in an ophthalmic office. My best advice to my continued from page 28 continued on page 32 Richard Lindstrom, MD Member at Large

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