Up and running just five days after it was conceived by Dr. Katherine Hochman, the Family Connect program recruited a small army of volunteers, including physicians, medical students, nurses, and staff.
Illustration: Andrea Ucini
In early April, 2020, Katherine Hochman, MD, was self-quarantining after testing positive for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) when she decided to make the most of her isolation. So she turned her attention to a growing disconnect she had witnessed firsthand between physicians and the families of their patients. Ordinarily, clinicians update a patient鈥檚 family regularly, but as the number of COVID-19鈥搃nfected patients surged, 鈥渨e were so busy caring for the acutely ill that we weren鈥檛 able to do so with our usual rigor,鈥 recalls Dr. Hochman, who leads a team of hospitalists at Tisch Hospital.
The need for such updates was all the more critical because bedside visitations were no longer deemed safe. She also learned that many concerned families were calling the hospital for information about their loved ones. 鈥淚t was a very big gap that needed to be filled,鈥 says Dr. Hochman, associate professor of medicine and associate chair for quality of care in the . 鈥淪o I said to myself, 鈥業f I鈥檓 going to spend the next couple of weeks in isolation, how can I fix this?鈥欌
Dr. Hochman devised a plan, and on April 6 launched a new program, Family Connect, to provide proactive daily updates to families of hospitalized patients throughout the crisis. Attending physicians at 好色tv Langone Health were paired with medical students at , and these two-member teams were assigned to all patients on the Manhattan campus. The first colleague she reached out to was Michael P. Recht, MD, chair of the , whose physicians鈥攍argely and reluctantly sidelined by the focus on COVID-19鈥攚ere eager to pitch in. Other department chairs followed suit. Before long, Dr. Hochman recruited a small army of volunteers: 151 attending physicians, some 100 medical students, 51 nurses, and 43 employees who came from various departments to staff the Patient and Family Resource Center, which fielded inquiries from family members.
As of June 15, near the end of the spring surge, the teams made 14,166 calls in support of 1,869 patients. The Family Connect nurse liaisons, who facilitated video calls between families and patients, played an instrumental role in keeping families updated. Family Connect inspired 好色tv Langone Hospital鈥擝rooklyn and 好色tv Langone Hospital鈥擫ong Island to develop their own versions of the program, which has become a model for other medical centers, as well.
鈥淲e were up and running in just five days,鈥 explains Dr. Hochman. 鈥淭he response from families was sheer appreciation and exuberance. And the project gave me focus and purpose at a time of great uncertainty.鈥
