Selected Podcast
The Hospital is Safe
Dr. Keith Moss shares how Riverside Healthcare has implemented extra safety protocols during the pandemic so patients feel safe seeking care unrelated to COVID-19.
Featured Speaker:
Keith Moss, MD, MA, FACP
Dr. Keith Moss was appointed to his current position in 2015. In 2013, he was appointed Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer. After spending time in academia Dr. Moss received his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 1999. He completed his residency at Rush University Medical Center in 2002. Prior to his current positions, he served Riverside as Chief Medical Advisor for Information Technology. He was recognized in 2016 and 2017 as one of the nation's "Hospital and Health System CMIOs to Know" by Becker's Hospital Review. Dr. Moss continues to practice as a general internist in Bourbonnais, Illinois and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. Transcription:
Introduction: Well Within Reach is brought to you by Riverside My Chart, your simple secure and confidential online health connection. With just a click, Riverside My Chart lets you stay well connected to the same information your doctor sees. You can request prescription refills, pay your bills, schedule your next appointment and more. Manage your care from your laptop, tablet or phone, whether for yourself, your kids or the grandparents, My Chart makes your busy life just a little easier. Learn more and enroll today at Riversidemychart.org just another way to stay well connected from Riverside Healthcare. Riverside Healthcare puts the health and wellness information you need, Well Within Reach.
Host: We're talking with Dr. Keith Moss. Dr. Moss is the Chief Medical Officer at Riverside Healthcare. Dr. Moss, welcome.
Dr. Moss: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Host: Great to have you here. And even here before talking about COVID-19 and it's been while now and we have some new things to talk about and, and one of those things we've discovered at the hospital is some folks were concerned about coming to the hospital for different types of care unrelated to COVID-19 because they were fearful of COVID-19 and that's caused them to delay putting off medical care. Not a great thing. How would you speak to that and what would you encourage folks to do?
Dr. Moss: You know, we are we're very mindful to try and do everything we can to keep you as safe as possible. We are all mask on, meaning that everyone in the healthcare community is wearing a mask. We are practicing very strict social distancing, as well as hand hygiene. We are doing testing on patients for those who are coming into our surgical areas for any kind of surgeries they might be having. So we're doing everything that we can do and we're going beyond that to make sure that you're safe. So we've tested our staff, for example, to make sure that they're that they're a negative. And if for some reason they come up positive, we isolate them until they are safe to come back. We've done this in all of our areas. We continue to do testing to the community. But we want to make sure that you feel like you're safe coming back. We know there are a lot of people with conditions that won't wait. Just because we have COVID-19 in the community does not mean that people don't have heart failure or that they don't have other chronic illnesses that need treatment. We have a lot of options for those people whether those be visits from via a video by a telephone or if they are under certain circumstances in the clinics. So we are open for business to do those things because we need to be, because people delaying care is not an acceptable option. We have to keep them as safe as possible. But in doing so we need to treat their other conditions. They can't keep delaying those conditions because it could result in much worse outcomes.
Host: Sure. Yeah. Another thing I believe that's happening is visitors who might notice this, temperatures are being taken and we are of staff as well as visitors to the hospital.
Dr. Moss: That's correct. Anyone who visits either a clinic or a hospital or the hospital, we are going to be testing their temperatures. And we're doing that to make sure that they have no other symptoms or that they could be spreading something. Whether that be COVID-19 or something else to other people. So we are being very strict about temperature testing, and making sure that those who do have a temperature are not coming into our facilities. We're also doing very strict cleaning. We're doing very, you know, and disinfecting of all of our areas including our waiting rooms, etcetera to make sure that those stay clean and safe for you.
Host: Sure. I understand the CDC has set the date of May 11th for reopening elective surgeries and that's going to be happening at Riverside as well.
Dr. Moss: It's actually the Omaha Department of Public Health because it is usually on a state by state basis. So elective surgeries will be open. We are recommending, we are following their guidelines, which is to test everyone who is going to have an elective surgery 72 hours before their surgery is done.
Host: And that will allow us to know those patients that are negative, and don't pose a harm and staff has being tested as well as you mentioned.
Dr. Moss: That's correct. Now, if a patient has an emergency procedure, we know that that procedure is an emergency means that although they may get tested, we may need to take them to the OR even prior to having that result back. But we have ways to control that situation as well.
Host: Sure. In the realm of elective surgeries, that would be a variety of things I'm sure. But maybe you could talk about a couple of those that would fall into that category.
Dr. Moss: Things like a gallbladder surgery for somebody who is not, who's having some abdominal discomfort, but who isn't severely impaired by that. Things like joint replacements, things like laparoscopic surgeries on the shoulder, some certain orthopedic procedures and certain abdominal procedures that that again people need to have done but they don't need to have them done on an emergency basis.
Host: So let's talk again about consequences and delaying care, as an internist and someone who sees primary care patients seeing the full gamut of, of ailments, someone can have, there are a lot of different things that can ail someone that can be pre disease or disease state that they don't want to put off. Speak again about how important it is that they don't delay that type of care.
Dr. Moss: Well, for example, if a patient starts to have some shortness of breath when they walk and it's not a short thing, they have no fever, they have nothing, they have just this. And we know that they have some issues with heart failure. We may need to see those patients one way or the other in order to assess their weight, in order to assess how their lungs are doing, in order to assess how their heart is doing. Because if we don't, and that progress is even if they're doing all the right things, we would need to do some interventions which require certain medication changes or which requires sometimes even, you know, angiograms or other things to help with those kinds of conditions. So in order to know what's really wrong with that patient, you've got to see them.
Host: And again, in delaying that now things could get to a degree where they're compromised, or more unhealthy. And to a point, I suppose in some cases where they're not going to be able to fully recover as they would have had they gotten attention earlier.
Dr. Moss: That's exactly right. So sometimes you can wait too long and then certain damage that can occur to any organ system can be irreversible if you don't do something about it earlier on.
Host: And as you said, Riverside doing, taking a lot of steps to make sure there's a safe environment for them. Folks can find out more about that if they go to the website, Riversidesafe.org and it outlines the full gamut of things we're doing at Riverside to keep people safe.
Dr. Moss: That's correct.
Host: Dr. Moss, thanks for your time today. We appreciate it.
Dr. Moss: All right. Thank you.
Introduction: Well Within Reach is brought to you by Riverside My Chart, your simple secure and confidential online health connection. With just a click, Riverside My Chart lets you stay well connected to the same information your doctor sees. You can request prescription refills, pay your bills, schedule your next appointment and more. Manage your care from your laptop, tablet or phone, whether for yourself, your kids or the grandparents, My Chart makes your busy life just a little easier. Learn more and enroll today at Riversidemychart.org just another way to stay well connected from Riverside Healthcare. Riverside Healthcare puts the health and wellness information you need, Well Within Reach.
Host: We're talking with Dr. Keith Moss. Dr. Moss is the Chief Medical Officer at Riverside Healthcare. Dr. Moss, welcome.
Dr. Moss: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Host: Great to have you here. And even here before talking about COVID-19 and it's been while now and we have some new things to talk about and, and one of those things we've discovered at the hospital is some folks were concerned about coming to the hospital for different types of care unrelated to COVID-19 because they were fearful of COVID-19 and that's caused them to delay putting off medical care. Not a great thing. How would you speak to that and what would you encourage folks to do?
Dr. Moss: You know, we are we're very mindful to try and do everything we can to keep you as safe as possible. We are all mask on, meaning that everyone in the healthcare community is wearing a mask. We are practicing very strict social distancing, as well as hand hygiene. We are doing testing on patients for those who are coming into our surgical areas for any kind of surgeries they might be having. So we're doing everything that we can do and we're going beyond that to make sure that you're safe. So we've tested our staff, for example, to make sure that they're that they're a negative. And if for some reason they come up positive, we isolate them until they are safe to come back. We've done this in all of our areas. We continue to do testing to the community. But we want to make sure that you feel like you're safe coming back. We know there are a lot of people with conditions that won't wait. Just because we have COVID-19 in the community does not mean that people don't have heart failure or that they don't have other chronic illnesses that need treatment. We have a lot of options for those people whether those be visits from via a video by a telephone or if they are under certain circumstances in the clinics. So we are open for business to do those things because we need to be, because people delaying care is not an acceptable option. We have to keep them as safe as possible. But in doing so we need to treat their other conditions. They can't keep delaying those conditions because it could result in much worse outcomes.
Host: Sure. Yeah. Another thing I believe that's happening is visitors who might notice this, temperatures are being taken and we are of staff as well as visitors to the hospital.
Dr. Moss: That's correct. Anyone who visits either a clinic or a hospital or the hospital, we are going to be testing their temperatures. And we're doing that to make sure that they have no other symptoms or that they could be spreading something. Whether that be COVID-19 or something else to other people. So we are being very strict about temperature testing, and making sure that those who do have a temperature are not coming into our facilities. We're also doing very strict cleaning. We're doing very, you know, and disinfecting of all of our areas including our waiting rooms, etcetera to make sure that those stay clean and safe for you.
Host: Sure. I understand the CDC has set the date of May 11th for reopening elective surgeries and that's going to be happening at Riverside as well.
Dr. Moss: It's actually the Omaha Department of Public Health because it is usually on a state by state basis. So elective surgeries will be open. We are recommending, we are following their guidelines, which is to test everyone who is going to have an elective surgery 72 hours before their surgery is done.
Host: And that will allow us to know those patients that are negative, and don't pose a harm and staff has being tested as well as you mentioned.
Dr. Moss: That's correct. Now, if a patient has an emergency procedure, we know that that procedure is an emergency means that although they may get tested, we may need to take them to the OR even prior to having that result back. But we have ways to control that situation as well.
Host: Sure. In the realm of elective surgeries, that would be a variety of things I'm sure. But maybe you could talk about a couple of those that would fall into that category.
Dr. Moss: Things like a gallbladder surgery for somebody who is not, who's having some abdominal discomfort, but who isn't severely impaired by that. Things like joint replacements, things like laparoscopic surgeries on the shoulder, some certain orthopedic procedures and certain abdominal procedures that that again people need to have done but they don't need to have them done on an emergency basis.
Host: So let's talk again about consequences and delaying care, as an internist and someone who sees primary care patients seeing the full gamut of, of ailments, someone can have, there are a lot of different things that can ail someone that can be pre disease or disease state that they don't want to put off. Speak again about how important it is that they don't delay that type of care.
Dr. Moss: Well, for example, if a patient starts to have some shortness of breath when they walk and it's not a short thing, they have no fever, they have nothing, they have just this. And we know that they have some issues with heart failure. We may need to see those patients one way or the other in order to assess their weight, in order to assess how their lungs are doing, in order to assess how their heart is doing. Because if we don't, and that progress is even if they're doing all the right things, we would need to do some interventions which require certain medication changes or which requires sometimes even, you know, angiograms or other things to help with those kinds of conditions. So in order to know what's really wrong with that patient, you've got to see them.
Host: And again, in delaying that now things could get to a degree where they're compromised, or more unhealthy. And to a point, I suppose in some cases where they're not going to be able to fully recover as they would have had they gotten attention earlier.
Dr. Moss: That's exactly right. So sometimes you can wait too long and then certain damage that can occur to any organ system can be irreversible if you don't do something about it earlier on.
Host: And as you said, Riverside doing, taking a lot of steps to make sure there's a safe environment for them. Folks can find out more about that if they go to the website, Riversidesafe.org and it outlines the full gamut of things we're doing at Riverside to keep people safe.
Dr. Moss: That's correct.
Host: Dr. Moss, thanks for your time today. We appreciate it.
Dr. Moss: All right. Thank you.