COVID-19 Update

Dear Choosing Wisely community,

We know that the COVID 19 pandemic is the overriding concern for all of us in the health care system at this time. We greatly admire the work you are doing to address this crisis and provide urgently needed care.

In light of our current situation, we at Choosing Wisely have decided to scale back some of our activities for now, such as our monthly webinar series and this newsletter. We did want to take this opportunity, however, to recommend a few resources that might be helpful at this time:

• This podcast from the New England Journal of Medicine features a discussion with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about how to talk with patients about COVID-19.
• This newsletter article details how the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center promoted better blood management practices to avoid unnecessary transfusions – an issue of particular importance given widespread concerns about blood shortages in our current environment.
• This case study describes how Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle reduced the use of antibiotics for viral respiratory infections, including by offering nurse phone care instead of office visits for patients. Perhaps some of their insights can be used in helping your staff triage COVID-19 concerns from patients.
• For another approach to antibiotics, you can read about the “Wellness Bags” that Mayo Regional Hospital in Maine provides to patients instead of antibiotics. We’ve heard from partners who use a similar approach that they have added CDC patient tips for COVID-19 to these types of packets for patients coming in with concerns about the virus.
• Kognito has created modules to help patients and clinicians have better conversations about whether antibiotics are necessary.

We also want to let you know that we will continue to put resources on our Workplace site. If you’re not already a part of Workplace, you can join by filling out this form.

We look forward to sharing new updates from the field with you in the future.

Please stay safe! You are doing critically important work, and your patients and communities need you.

Sincerely,

Richard Baron, MD
President and CEO
ABIM & ABIM Foundation

Daniel Wolfson, MHSA
Executive Vice President/COO
ABIM Foundation