The COVID-19 pandemic is creating era-defining strains on healthcare capacity and delivery. As a frontline healthcare provider, your innovative ideas could power change that eases this strain. Make your ideas heard and break down the silos of preparation and planning!
The COVID-19 pandemic will be a career-defining window for most healthcare providers. Leadership teams for departments including emergency medicine and intensive care are developing novel policies and care strategies in an attempt to rapidly respond to an unknown frontier in pandemic medicine. There has likely never been a global healthcare response of this magnitude.
We need to break down the silos of care delivery.
The burden on our key stakeholders and decision-makers in healthcare is immense. Acting pro-actively on rapidly shifting data is extremely challenging. Adaptations are being made in local contexts with great pace and success, as demonstrated by the collaborative airway protocols found worldwide aimed at providing safer endotracheal intubation. However, creating solutions for hospitals exclusively at a local level may prove inefficient, if not impossible, at the peak of the pandemic.
Most ideas are built on stepping stones laid by others.
There has been a call from several health authorities for an “all hands on deck” approach to developing creative solutions to deal with the expanding problem list for care delivery in the COVID-19 era. While the majority of ideas submitted by individuals may not work as a blanket solution for all settings, even if 1 out of 1000 can modify care delivery, this can be scaled massively to save lives.
We can equip stakeholders with information from the front-line.
All staff from frontline COVID care – MDs, RNs, respiratory therapists, healthcare aides, etc – Add your voice, expertise, and experience to the conversation. Through a simple online submission form, your idea will be compiled into the COVID-19 Healthcare Innovative Response document. This will be freely accessible for viewing and can be shared amongst leadership teams.
The COVID19 Healthcare Innovation Response document of previously submitted ideas is updated every 1 – 2 days. Click the link below to view:
Submit your innovative idea to have it reviewed and added. No matter how small or wild the idea may seem… Submit it. It might be hypothetical or something that has worked either in your department or elsewhere. You may have the missing link to save lives worldwide. Submit here:
By submitting proposed or locally successful ideas, you might be the “stepping stone” needed from your leadership team to create a game-changer in the COVID-19 pandemic. This document has already equipped Emergency Department leaders and teams of engineers across Canada to begin creating some of the ideas. Your local department might also gain inspiration from the list.
Let’s break down the silos and work together.
This post was copy-edited by Ben Forestell and reviewed by Patrick Boreskie