Karen E Jerardi, MD, MEd

We recently published an article in our Leadership & Professional Development series titled “Tribalism: The Good, the Bad, and the Future.” Despite pre- and post-acceptance manuscript review and discussion by a diverse and thoughtful team of editors, we did not appreciate how particular language in this article would be hurtful to some communities. We also promoted the article using the hashtag “tribalism” in a journal tweet. Shortly after we posted the tweet, several readers on social media reached out with constructive feedback on the prejudicial nature of this terminology. Within hours of receiving this feedback, our editorial team met to better understand our error, and we made the decision to immediately retract the manuscript. We also deleted the tweet and issued an apology referencing a screenshot of the original tweet.^1,2 We have republished the original article with appropriate language.³ Tweets promoting the new article will incorporate this new language.

From this experience, we learned that the words “tribe” and “tribalism” have no consistent meaning, are associated with negative historical and cultural assumptions, and can promote misleading stereotypes.⁴ The term “tribe” became popular as a colonial construct to describe forms of social organization considered ”uncivilized” or ”primitive.“⁵ In using the term “tribe” to describe members of medical communities, we ignored the complex and dynamic identities of Native American, African, and other Indigenous Peoples and the history of their oppression.

The intent of the original article was to highlight how being part of a distinct medical discipline, such as hospital medicine or emergency medicine, conferred benefits, such as shared identity and social support structure, and caution how this group identity could also lead to nonconstructive partisan behaviors that might not best serve our patients. We recognize that other words more accurately convey our intent and do not cause harm. We used “tribe” when we meant “group,” “discipline,” or “specialty.” We used “tribalism” when we meant “siloed” or “factional.”

This misstep underscores how, even with the best intentions and diverse teams, microaggressions can happen. We accept responsibility for this mistake, and we will continue to do the work of respecting and advocating for all members of our community. To minimize the likelihood of future errors, we are developing a systematic process to identify language within manuscripts accepted for publication that may be racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful. As we embrace a growth mindset, we vow to remain transparent, responsive, and welcoming of feedback. We are grateful to our readers for helping us learn.

We recently published an article in our Leadership & Professional Development series titled “Tribalism: The Good, the Bad, and the Future.” Despite pre- and post-acceptance manuscript review and discussion by a diverse and thoughtful team of editors, we did not appreciate how particular language in this article would be hurtful to some communities. We also promoted the article using the hashtag “tribalism” in a journal tweet. Shortly after we posted the tweet, several readers on social media reached out with constructive feedback on the prejudicial nature of this terminology. Within hours of receiving this feedback, our editorial team met to better understand our error, and we made the decision to immediately retract the manuscript. We also deleted the tweet and issued an apology referencing a screenshot of the original tweet.^1,2 We have republished the original article with appropriate language.³ Tweets promoting the new article will incorporate this new language.

From this experience, we learned that the words “tribe” and “tribalism” have no consistent meaning, are associated with negative historical and cultural assumptions, and can promote misleading stereotypes.⁴ The term “tribe” became popular as a colonial construct to describe forms of social organization considered ”uncivilized” or ”primitive.“⁵ In using the term “tribe” to describe members of medical communities, we ignored the complex and dynamic identities of Native American, African, and other Indigenous Peoples and the history of their oppression.

The intent of the original article was to highlight how being part of a distinct medical discipline, such as hospital medicine or emergency medicine, conferred benefits, such as shared identity and social support structure, and caution how this group identity could also lead to nonconstructive partisan behaviors that might not best serve our patients. We recognize that other words more accurately convey our intent and do not cause harm. We used “tribe” when we meant “group,” “discipline,” or “specialty.” We used “tribalism” when we meant “siloed” or “factional.”

This misstep underscores how, even with the best intentions and diverse teams, microaggressions can happen. We accept responsibility for this mistake, and we will continue to do the work of respecting and advocating for all members of our community. To minimize the likelihood of future errors, we are developing a systematic process to identify language within manuscripts accepted for publication that may be racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful. As we embrace a growth mindset, we vow to remain transparent, responsive, and welcoming of feedback. We are grateful to our readers for helping us learn.

We recently published an article in our Leadership & Professional Development series titled “Tribalism: The Good, the Bad, and the Future.” Despite pre- and post-acceptance manuscript review and discussion by a diverse and thoughtful team of editors, we did not appreciate how particular language in this article would be hurtful to some communities. We also promoted the article using the hashtag “tribalism” in a journal tweet. Shortly after we posted the tweet, several readers on social media reached out with constructive feedback on the prejudicial nature of this terminology. Within hours of receiving this feedback, our editorial team met to better understand our error, and we made the decision to immediately retract the manuscript. We also deleted the tweet and issued an apology referencing a screenshot of the original tweet.^1,2 We have republished the original article with appropriate language.³ Tweets promoting the new article will incorporate this new language.

From this experience, we learned that the words “tribe” and “tribalism” have no consistent meaning, are associated with negative historical and cultural assumptions, and can promote misleading stereotypes.⁴ The term “tribe” became popular as a colonial construct to describe forms of social organization considered ”uncivilized” or ”primitive.“⁵ In using the term “tribe” to describe members of medical communities, we ignored the complex and dynamic identities of Native American, African, and other Indigenous Peoples and the history of their oppression.

The intent of the original article was to highlight how being part of a distinct medical discipline, such as hospital medicine or emergency medicine, conferred benefits, such as shared identity and social support structure, and caution how this group identity could also lead to nonconstructive partisan behaviors that might not best serve our patients. We recognize that other words more accurately convey our intent and do not cause harm. We used “tribe” when we meant “group,” “discipline,” or “specialty.” We used “tribalism” when we meant “siloed” or “factional.”

This misstep underscores how, even with the best intentions and diverse teams, microaggressions can happen. We accept responsibility for this mistake, and we will continue to do the work of respecting and advocating for all members of our community. To minimize the likelihood of future errors, we are developing a systematic process to identify language within manuscripts accepted for publication that may be racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful. As we embrace a growth mindset, we vow to remain transparent, responsive, and welcoming of feedback. We are grateful to our readers for helping us learn.

Core competencies are intended to provide defined expectations in a field of medicine. The newly published Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) Core Competencies: 2020 Revision are an update of the original 2010 competencies¹ with added and restructured content based on relevance to current practice.^2,3 This is timely given the 2017 update to the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) core competencies⁴ and recent designation of PHM as a boarded subspecialty by the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP). The competencies help define the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of a pediatric hospital medicine specialist and inform curriculum development to achieve the determined expectations.

In this update to the PHM core competencies, key adjustments were made to the editorial process. Importantly, a community hospitalist was added to the editorial team; this change better reflects the proportion of care provided to hospitalized children at community sites nationwide.⁵ Content updates were considered using a two-pronged needs assessment: (1) review of recent PHM conference, textbook, and handbook content and (2) survey of the SHM, Academic Pediatric Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics stakeholder groups. These processes led to the addition of 12 chapters, the major revision of 7 chapters, and the addition of content to 29 of the original chapters.

The increased focus on mental health in the sections “Common Clinical Diagnoses and Conditions” and “Specialized Services” is a necessary update. Chapters on neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), substance abuse, and altered mental status were added to the “Common Clinical Diagnoses and Conditions” section. The increasing incidence of NAS has been well described, and the field of PHM has been instrumental in improving care for these patients.⁶ Children hospitalized with mental health diagnoses constitute a substantial portion of pediatric inpatient admissions,⁷ and we anticipate that it will be a continued area of need in PHM. Therefore, the addition of chapters on acute and chronic behavioral and psychiatric conditions in the “Specialized Services” section is noteworthy. In contrast, with the added chapters on constipation and gastrointestinal and digestive disorders, the gastrointestinal disorders may be disproportionately represented in the updated competencies and may be an area to streamline in future iterations.

Recognition of changing procedural needs in the inpatient pediatric setting, particularly with the growing population of children with medical complexity, resulted in removal of suprapubic bladder taps and addition of vesicostomy care to the “Core Skills” section. In future updates, it will be important to continue to remove practices that are no longer relevant or widespread and include advances in procedural skills applicable to PHM such as point-of-care ultrasound.⁸

The “Healthcare Systems” section highlights additional skills ranging from quality improvement and research to family-­centered care that PHM physicians bring to healthcare institutions. According to a recent survey of early-career hospitalists, skills in these areas are often not adequately developed during residency training.⁹ Therefore, the competencies outlined in this section are a key part of proposed PHM fellowship curricula¹⁰ and should be recognized as potential development opportunities for junior faculty in the field. This section also highlights the increasing medical complexity of patients and evolving role of PHM expertise in comanagement and consultation to improve quality and safety of care. Appreciating the unique needs of underserved communities is another important addition in the new chapter on family-centered care.

Looking ahead to future updates, we appreciate that the editors commented on diversity in both editorship and authorship. In line with the recent call for improved representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities in academic medicine by the Journal of Hospital Medicine,¹¹ future core competency publications should broadly consider diversity in editors, authors, and reviewers and more explicitly address methods for increasing diversity. We also anticipate that technological advances, such as telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, will be at the forefront in subsequent updates, which will allow higher levels of care to be provided outside of the traditional hospital structure. With the recent inauguration of the ABP PHM certification exam and the first cycle of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education accreditation for PHM fellowships, these updated competencies are timely and relevant. The authors’ ongoing efforts are crucial for our young and evolving field as we strive to improve the health of all hospitalized children.

The authors have nothing to disclose.

Core competencies are intended to provide defined expectations in a field of medicine. The newly published Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) Core Competencies: 2020 Revision are an update of the original 2010 competencies¹ with added and restructured content based on relevance to current practice.^2,3 This is timely given the 2017 update to the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) core competencies⁴ and recent designation of PHM as a boarded subspecialty by the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP). The competencies help define the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of a pediatric hospital medicine specialist and inform curriculum development to achieve the determined expectations.

In this update to the PHM core competencies, key adjustments were made to the editorial process. Importantly, a community hospitalist was added to the editorial team; this change better reflects the proportion of care provided to hospitalized children at community sites nationwide.⁵ Content updates were considered using a two-pronged needs assessment: (1) review of recent PHM conference, textbook, and handbook content and (2) survey of the SHM, Academic Pediatric Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics stakeholder groups. These processes led to the addition of 12 chapters, the major revision of 7 chapters, and the addition of content to 29 of the original chapters.

The increased focus on mental health in the sections “Common Clinical Diagnoses and Conditions” and “Specialized Services” is a necessary update. Chapters on neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), substance abuse, and altered mental status were added to the “Common Clinical Diagnoses and Conditions” section. The increasing incidence of NAS has been well described, and the field of PHM has been instrumental in improving care for these patients.⁶ Children hospitalized with mental health diagnoses constitute a substantial portion of pediatric inpatient admissions,⁷ and we anticipate that it will be a continued area of need in PHM. Therefore, the addition of chapters on acute and chronic behavioral and psychiatric conditions in the “Specialized Services” section is noteworthy. In contrast, with the added chapters on constipation and gastrointestinal and digestive disorders, the gastrointestinal disorders may be disproportionately represented in the updated competencies and may be an area to streamline in future iterations.

Recognition of changing procedural needs in the inpatient pediatric setting, particularly with the growing population of children with medical complexity, resulted in removal of suprapubic bladder taps and addition of vesicostomy care to the “Core Skills” section. In future updates, it will be important to continue to remove practices that are no longer relevant or widespread and include advances in procedural skills applicable to PHM such as point-of-care ultrasound.⁸

The “Healthcare Systems” section highlights additional skills ranging from quality improvement and research to family-­centered care that PHM physicians bring to healthcare institutions. According to a recent survey of early-career hospitalists, skills in these areas are often not adequately developed during residency training.⁹ Therefore, the competencies outlined in this section are a key part of proposed PHM fellowship curricula¹⁰ and should be recognized as potential development opportunities for junior faculty in the field. This section also highlights the increasing medical complexity of patients and evolving role of PHM expertise in comanagement and consultation to improve quality and safety of care. Appreciating the unique needs of underserved communities is another important addition in the new chapter on family-centered care.

Looking ahead to future updates, we appreciate that the editors commented on diversity in both editorship and authorship. In line with the recent call for improved representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities in academic medicine by the Journal of Hospital Medicine,¹¹ future core competency publications should broadly consider diversity in editors, authors, and reviewers and more explicitly address methods for increasing diversity. We also anticipate that technological advances, such as telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, will be at the forefront in subsequent updates, which will allow higher levels of care to be provided outside of the traditional hospital structure. With the recent inauguration of the ABP PHM certification exam and the first cycle of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education accreditation for PHM fellowships, these updated competencies are timely and relevant. The authors’ ongoing efforts are crucial for our young and evolving field as we strive to improve the health of all hospitalized children.

The authors have nothing to disclose.

Core competencies are intended to provide defined expectations in a field of medicine. The newly published Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) Core Competencies: 2020 Revision are an update of the original 2010 competencies¹ with added and restructured content based on relevance to current practice.^2,3 This is timely given the 2017 update to the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) core competencies⁴ and recent designation of PHM as a boarded subspecialty by the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP). The competencies help define the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of a pediatric hospital medicine specialist and inform curriculum development to achieve the determined expectations.

In this update to the PHM core competencies, key adjustments were made to the editorial process. Importantly, a community hospitalist was added to the editorial team; this change better reflects the proportion of care provided to hospitalized children at community sites nationwide.⁵ Content updates were considered using a two-pronged needs assessment: (1) review of recent PHM conference, textbook, and handbook content and (2) survey of the SHM, Academic Pediatric Association, and American Academy of Pediatrics stakeholder groups. These processes led to the addition of 12 chapters, the major revision of 7 chapters, and the addition of content to 29 of the original chapters.

The increased focus on mental health in the sections “Common Clinical Diagnoses and Conditions” and “Specialized Services” is a necessary update. Chapters on neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), substance abuse, and altered mental status were added to the “Common Clinical Diagnoses and Conditions” section. The increasing incidence of NAS has been well described, and the field of PHM has been instrumental in improving care for these patients.⁶ Children hospitalized with mental health diagnoses constitute a substantial portion of pediatric inpatient admissions,⁷ and we anticipate that it will be a continued area of need in PHM. Therefore, the addition of chapters on acute and chronic behavioral and psychiatric conditions in the “Specialized Services” section is noteworthy. In contrast, with the added chapters on constipation and gastrointestinal and digestive disorders, the gastrointestinal disorders may be disproportionately represented in the updated competencies and may be an area to streamline in future iterations.

Recognition of changing procedural needs in the inpatient pediatric setting, particularly with the growing population of children with medical complexity, resulted in removal of suprapubic bladder taps and addition of vesicostomy care to the “Core Skills” section. In future updates, it will be important to continue to remove practices that are no longer relevant or widespread and include advances in procedural skills applicable to PHM such as point-of-care ultrasound.⁸

The “Healthcare Systems” section highlights additional skills ranging from quality improvement and research to family-­centered care that PHM physicians bring to healthcare institutions. According to a recent survey of early-career hospitalists, skills in these areas are often not adequately developed during residency training.⁹ Therefore, the competencies outlined in this section are a key part of proposed PHM fellowship curricula¹⁰ and should be recognized as potential development opportunities for junior faculty in the field. This section also highlights the increasing medical complexity of patients and evolving role of PHM expertise in comanagement and consultation to improve quality and safety of care. Appreciating the unique needs of underserved communities is another important addition in the new chapter on family-centered care.

Looking ahead to future updates, we appreciate that the editors commented on diversity in both editorship and authorship. In line with the recent call for improved representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities in academic medicine by the Journal of Hospital Medicine,¹¹ future core competency publications should broadly consider diversity in editors, authors, and reviewers and more explicitly address methods for increasing diversity. We also anticipate that technological advances, such as telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, will be at the forefront in subsequent updates, which will allow higher levels of care to be provided outside of the traditional hospital structure. With the recent inauguration of the ABP PHM certification exam and the first cycle of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education accreditation for PHM fellowships, these updated competencies are timely and relevant. The authors’ ongoing efforts are crucial for our young and evolving field as we strive to improve the health of all hospitalized children.

The authors have nothing to disclose.

Establish a Command Team

We benefit from having an existing divisional leadership structure comprising the director, medical directors of our clinical service lines, directors of education and community integration, and associate directors of clinical operations, research, and quality. This established team provides us broad representation of team member expertise and ideas. We maintain our weekly leadership team meeting through video chat and have added daily 30-minute virtual huddles to provide updates from our respective areas and discuss logistical challenges and planning. We use ad hoc phone meetings with relevant team members to address issues of immediate concern.

In the absence of a formal leadership team structure, establish a command team comprising representative leaders of your varied groups (eg, clinical operations, quality improvement, education, research, and business).

Collaborate With Institutional Response

Align divisional command team actions with the institutional response. Our clinical operations leader serves as our primary representative on the institutional emergency preparedness team. This participation allows bidirectional communication, both for institutional updates to be shared with division members and division-specific initiatives to be shared with institutional leadership to facilitate learning across the system.

In conjunction with hospital leadership, our division created a special isolation unit (SIU) to isolate patients positive for COVID-19 and persons under investigation. The institutional emergency preparedness team highlighted the need for such a unit, and our divisional leadership team developed the physician staffing model and medical care delivery system. We collaborated with key stakeholders, including nurses, respiratory therapists, other patient care services members, and subspecialists. The SIU leadership, which includes representatives from hospital medicine, nursing, respiratory therapy, and hospital operations, holds regular phone huddles to provide support and enlist resources based on identified gaps, which allows the frontline SIU physicians to focus on patient care. The calls initially occurred twice daily, but we transitioned to a once-daily schedule after routines were established and resources were procured.

Communicate With Everyone

Frequent communication with the clinical staff is paramount given the rapidly evolving operational changes and medical management recommendations. The divisional leadership team provides frequent email updates to the attending physicians on clinical shifts to communicate clinical updates, send reminders to conserve personal protective equipment (PPE), and share links to COVID-19 resources.

We use our weekly divisional meetings, now held virtually, to provide updates and to allow staff to ask questions and provide input. These meetings routinely include our nonclinical staff, such as administrative assistants and research coordinators, to ensure all team members’ voices are heard and skill sets are utilized. Our divisional infrastructure promotes dialogue and transparency, which is key to our division’s culture. Applying a learning health network approach has allowed us to generate new ideas, accelerate improvement, and encourage everyone to be a part of our community focused on improving outcomes.⁶ We continue to leverage this approach in our pandemic response.

One idea generated from this approach prompted us to create a centralized communication forum, using Microsoft Teams, to serve as a repository for the most up-to-date information related to COVID-19, the SIU, and general information, including links to divisional and institutional resources.

Maintain Nonclinical Operations

Nonclinical staff are working remotely. The business director and research director hold daily calls with the administrative staff and research coordinators, respectively, to discuss workload and to reallocate responsibilities as needed. This approach allows the business, administrative, and research support teams to function efficiently and redistribute work as the nonclinical priorities shift to meet divisional needs.

Establish a Backup Pool

We anticipate needing a larger pool of backup providers in the event of ill or quarantined staff or in case of increased patient volumes. The latter may be less likely for pediatric patients based on early studies^3-5 but could occur if our free-standing children’s hospital expands to include the care of adult patients. We asked physicians to volunteer for backup shifts to augment our existing “jeopardy” backup system with a greater request to those with a lower clinical full-time equivalence. Each day, two backup shift positions are filled by volunteers, with additional positions added on days when medicine-­pediatrics providers are scheduled for shifts in case they are needed at the university (adult) hospital.

Minimize Staffing to Reserve Pool

We monitor census closely on all service lines, including our consult service lines and secondary inpatient site, with plans to dissolve unnecessary consult services and combine medical teams, when feasible, to reduce the risk of staff exposure and maintain reserves. For example, after elective procedures were canceled, we reduced physician staffing of our surgical comanagement service to the minimal necessary coverage. We assign nonpatient-facing clinical duties to physicians who are called off their shift, in quarantine, or mildly ill to help off-load the clinical burden. Such duties include accepting direct admission phone calls, triaging patient care calls, entering orders remotely, and assisting with care coordination needs.

Anticipate Adult Care Needs

Our pediatric institution admits select groups of adult patients with congenital or complex healthcare needs who require specialized care. Hospitalists board certified in both pediatrics and internal medicine provide consultative services to many of these patients. Anticipating that these physicians may be needed in adult facilities, we plan to dissolve this consult service and utilize our reserve pool of providers to cover their pediatric shifts if needed. Additionally, if our hospital expands coverage for adult patients, these medicine-pediatrics providers will be instrumental in coordinating that expanded effort and will serve as leaders for teams of physicians and advanced practice providers with limited or no adult medicine training.

Special Isolation Unit

Logistic planning for our SIU evolved over the first few patients with rapid-cycle feedback and learning with each admission. This feedback was facilitated with our twice-daily huddle calls, which involved all key stakeholders, including nursing and respiratory therapy representatives. For division physician staffing, higher-risk team members are excluded from working on this unit. Because the SIU was developed to care for all patients positive for COVID-19 and persons under investigation, subspecialty patients not typically cared for by Hospital Medicine at our institution are being admitted to this unit. Therefore, subspecialty divisions assign attending physicians to provide consultative services to the SIU. These consultants use the unit’s telemedicine capabilities, when feasible, to limit staff exposure and conserve PPE. Our hospital medicine leaders in the SIU proactively worked with subspecialty divisions that are anticipated to have more admissions given their at-risk patient populations, such as pulmonary medicine, cardiology, and oncology. They specifically developed staffing plans for these patients if the SIU census becomes unsustainable under Hospital Medicine alone.

Healthcare workers are experiencing numerous stressors at work and home during this tumultuous time. Our workforce is at risk of developing emotional distress and mental health concerns. A cross-sectional survey of more than 1,200 healthcare workers in China who cared for COVID-19 patients found that many experienced symptoms of psychological distress (71%), as well as depression (51%), anxiety (44%), and insomnia (34%).⁷ Hospital medicine groups should consider methods to support their staff to mitigate stressors and promote self-care.

Anticipate Childcare Issues

When we were faced with impending school and daycare closures, we surveyed our division to assess childcare needs (Table) and share resources. We created a system of emergency childcare coverage options by connecting parents with similarly aged children and who lived in geographic proximity. This approach to childcare contingency planning was shared with and adopted by other divisions within the institution.

Build Support Measures

To support each other during this particularly stressful time, we divided division members into groups or “support pods,” each facilitated by a leadership team member. Group text messages and weekly phone or video chats have promoted connectivity and peer support.

Promote Self-care

The divisional leadership team provides food and drink for staff on clinical shifts. We also collated self-care resources to share via a central repository. These resources include ideas for meditation, home education for children, parenting, exercise, faith communities, entertainment, methods to support our local community through volunteerism and donations, and mental health resources, as well as online links to these resources.

Adult health systems will be disproportionately affected as this pandemic evolves. Pediatric hospitalists have the unique opportunity to support the response efforts by maintaining teams that are flexible and adaptable to evolving community needs. To do this, team leaders need to promote transparency, share learnings, and leverage the diverse skills of team members to ensure we are ready to meet the challenges of the moment.

Establish a Command Team

We benefit from having an existing divisional leadership structure comprising the director, medical directors of our clinical service lines, directors of education and community integration, and associate directors of clinical operations, research, and quality. This established team provides us broad representation of team member expertise and ideas. We maintain our weekly leadership team meeting through video chat and have added daily 30-minute virtual huddles to provide updates from our respective areas and discuss logistical challenges and planning. We use ad hoc phone meetings with relevant team members to address issues of immediate concern.

In the absence of a formal leadership team structure, establish a command team comprising representative leaders of your varied groups (eg, clinical operations, quality improvement, education, research, and business).

Collaborate With Institutional Response

Align divisional command team actions with the institutional response. Our clinical operations leader serves as our primary representative on the institutional emergency preparedness team. This participation allows bidirectional communication, both for institutional updates to be shared with division members and division-specific initiatives to be shared with institutional leadership to facilitate learning across the system.

In conjunction with hospital leadership, our division created a special isolation unit (SIU) to isolate patients positive for COVID-19 and persons under investigation. The institutional emergency preparedness team highlighted the need for such a unit, and our divisional leadership team developed the physician staffing model and medical care delivery system. We collaborated with key stakeholders, including nurses, respiratory therapists, other patient care services members, and subspecialists. The SIU leadership, which includes representatives from hospital medicine, nursing, respiratory therapy, and hospital operations, holds regular phone huddles to provide support and enlist resources based on identified gaps, which allows the frontline SIU physicians to focus on patient care. The calls initially occurred twice daily, but we transitioned to a once-daily schedule after routines were established and resources were procured.

Communicate With Everyone

Frequent communication with the clinical staff is paramount given the rapidly evolving operational changes and medical management recommendations. The divisional leadership team provides frequent email updates to the attending physicians on clinical shifts to communicate clinical updates, send reminders to conserve personal protective equipment (PPE), and share links to COVID-19 resources.

We use our weekly divisional meetings, now held virtually, to provide updates and to allow staff to ask questions and provide input. These meetings routinely include our nonclinical staff, such as administrative assistants and research coordinators, to ensure all team members’ voices are heard and skill sets are utilized. Our divisional infrastructure promotes dialogue and transparency, which is key to our division’s culture. Applying a learning health network approach has allowed us to generate new ideas, accelerate improvement, and encourage everyone to be a part of our community focused on improving outcomes.⁶ We continue to leverage this approach in our pandemic response.

One idea generated from this approach prompted us to create a centralized communication forum, using Microsoft Teams, to serve as a repository for the most up-to-date information related to COVID-19, the SIU, and general information, including links to divisional and institutional resources.

Maintain Nonclinical Operations

Nonclinical staff are working remotely. The business director and research director hold daily calls with the administrative staff and research coordinators, respectively, to discuss workload and to reallocate responsibilities as needed. This approach allows the business, administrative, and research support teams to function efficiently and redistribute work as the nonclinical priorities shift to meet divisional needs.

Establish a Backup Pool

We anticipate needing a larger pool of backup providers in the event of ill or quarantined staff or in case of increased patient volumes. The latter may be less likely for pediatric patients based on early studies^3-5 but could occur if our free-standing children’s hospital expands to include the care of adult patients. We asked physicians to volunteer for backup shifts to augment our existing “jeopardy” backup system with a greater request to those with a lower clinical full-time equivalence. Each day, two backup shift positions are filled by volunteers, with additional positions added on days when medicine-­pediatrics providers are scheduled for shifts in case they are needed at the university (adult) hospital.

Minimize Staffing to Reserve Pool

We monitor census closely on all service lines, including our consult service lines and secondary inpatient site, with plans to dissolve unnecessary consult services and combine medical teams, when feasible, to reduce the risk of staff exposure and maintain reserves. For example, after elective procedures were canceled, we reduced physician staffing of our surgical comanagement service to the minimal necessary coverage. We assign nonpatient-facing clinical duties to physicians who are called off their shift, in quarantine, or mildly ill to help off-load the clinical burden. Such duties include accepting direct admission phone calls, triaging patient care calls, entering orders remotely, and assisting with care coordination needs.

Anticipate Adult Care Needs

Our pediatric institution admits select groups of adult patients with congenital or complex healthcare needs who require specialized care. Hospitalists board certified in both pediatrics and internal medicine provide consultative services to many of these patients. Anticipating that these physicians may be needed in adult facilities, we plan to dissolve this consult service and utilize our reserve pool of providers to cover their pediatric shifts if needed. Additionally, if our hospital expands coverage for adult patients, these medicine-pediatrics providers will be instrumental in coordinating that expanded effort and will serve as leaders for teams of physicians and advanced practice providers with limited or no adult medicine training.

Special Isolation Unit

Logistic planning for our SIU evolved over the first few patients with rapid-cycle feedback and learning with each admission. This feedback was facilitated with our twice-daily huddle calls, which involved all key stakeholders, including nursing and respiratory therapy representatives. For division physician staffing, higher-risk team members are excluded from working on this unit. Because the SIU was developed to care for all patients positive for COVID-19 and persons under investigation, subspecialty patients not typically cared for by Hospital Medicine at our institution are being admitted to this unit. Therefore, subspecialty divisions assign attending physicians to provide consultative services to the SIU. These consultants use the unit’s telemedicine capabilities, when feasible, to limit staff exposure and conserve PPE. Our hospital medicine leaders in the SIU proactively worked with subspecialty divisions that are anticipated to have more admissions given their at-risk patient populations, such as pulmonary medicine, cardiology, and oncology. They specifically developed staffing plans for these patients if the SIU census becomes unsustainable under Hospital Medicine alone.

Healthcare workers are experiencing numerous stressors at work and home during this tumultuous time. Our workforce is at risk of developing emotional distress and mental health concerns. A cross-sectional survey of more than 1,200 healthcare workers in China who cared for COVID-19 patients found that many experienced symptoms of psychological distress (71%), as well as depression (51%), anxiety (44%), and insomnia (34%).⁷ Hospital medicine groups should consider methods to support their staff to mitigate stressors and promote self-care.

Anticipate Childcare Issues

When we were faced with impending school and daycare closures, we surveyed our division to assess childcare needs (Table) and share resources. We created a system of emergency childcare coverage options by connecting parents with similarly aged children and who lived in geographic proximity. This approach to childcare contingency planning was shared with and adopted by other divisions within the institution.

Build Support Measures

To support each other during this particularly stressful time, we divided division members into groups or “support pods,” each facilitated by a leadership team member. Group text messages and weekly phone or video chats have promoted connectivity and peer support.

Promote Self-care

The divisional leadership team provides food and drink for staff on clinical shifts. We also collated self-care resources to share via a central repository. These resources include ideas for meditation, home education for children, parenting, exercise, faith communities, entertainment, methods to support our local community through volunteerism and donations, and mental health resources, as well as online links to these resources.

Adult health systems will be disproportionately affected as this pandemic evolves. Pediatric hospitalists have the unique opportunity to support the response efforts by maintaining teams that are flexible and adaptable to evolving community needs. To do this, team leaders need to promote transparency, share learnings, and leverage the diverse skills of team members to ensure we are ready to meet the challenges of the moment.

Establish a Command Team

We benefit from having an existing divisional leadership structure comprising the director, medical directors of our clinical service lines, directors of education and community integration, and associate directors of clinical operations, research, and quality. This established team provides us broad representation of team member expertise and ideas. We maintain our weekly leadership team meeting through video chat and have added daily 30-minute virtual huddles to provide updates from our respective areas and discuss logistical challenges and planning. We use ad hoc phone meetings with relevant team members to address issues of immediate concern.

In the absence of a formal leadership team structure, establish a command team comprising representative leaders of your varied groups (eg, clinical operations, quality improvement, education, research, and business).

Collaborate With Institutional Response

Align divisional command team actions with the institutional response. Our clinical operations leader serves as our primary representative on the institutional emergency preparedness team. This participation allows bidirectional communication, both for institutional updates to be shared with division members and division-specific initiatives to be shared with institutional leadership to facilitate learning across the system.

In conjunction with hospital leadership, our division created a special isolation unit (SIU) to isolate patients positive for COVID-19 and persons under investigation. The institutional emergency preparedness team highlighted the need for such a unit, and our divisional leadership team developed the physician staffing model and medical care delivery system. We collaborated with key stakeholders, including nurses, respiratory therapists, other patient care services members, and subspecialists. The SIU leadership, which includes representatives from hospital medicine, nursing, respiratory therapy, and hospital operations, holds regular phone huddles to provide support and enlist resources based on identified gaps, which allows the frontline SIU physicians to focus on patient care. The calls initially occurred twice daily, but we transitioned to a once-daily schedule after routines were established and resources were procured.

Communicate With Everyone

Frequent communication with the clinical staff is paramount given the rapidly evolving operational changes and medical management recommendations. The divisional leadership team provides frequent email updates to the attending physicians on clinical shifts to communicate clinical updates, send reminders to conserve personal protective equipment (PPE), and share links to COVID-19 resources.

We use our weekly divisional meetings, now held virtually, to provide updates and to allow staff to ask questions and provide input. These meetings routinely include our nonclinical staff, such as administrative assistants and research coordinators, to ensure all team members’ voices are heard and skill sets are utilized. Our divisional infrastructure promotes dialogue and transparency, which is key to our division’s culture. Applying a learning health network approach has allowed us to generate new ideas, accelerate improvement, and encourage everyone to be a part of our community focused on improving outcomes.⁶ We continue to leverage this approach in our pandemic response.

One idea generated from this approach prompted us to create a centralized communication forum, using Microsoft Teams, to serve as a repository for the most up-to-date information related to COVID-19, the SIU, and general information, including links to divisional and institutional resources.

Maintain Nonclinical Operations

Nonclinical staff are working remotely. The business director and research director hold daily calls with the administrative staff and research coordinators, respectively, to discuss workload and to reallocate responsibilities as needed. This approach allows the business, administrative, and research support teams to function efficiently and redistribute work as the nonclinical priorities shift to meet divisional needs.

Establish a Backup Pool

We anticipate needing a larger pool of backup providers in the event of ill or quarantined staff or in case of increased patient volumes. The latter may be less likely for pediatric patients based on early studies^3-5 but could occur if our free-standing children’s hospital expands to include the care of adult patients. We asked physicians to volunteer for backup shifts to augment our existing “jeopardy” backup system with a greater request to those with a lower clinical full-time equivalence. Each day, two backup shift positions are filled by volunteers, with additional positions added on days when medicine-­pediatrics providers are scheduled for shifts in case they are needed at the university (adult) hospital.

Minimize Staffing to Reserve Pool

We monitor census closely on all service lines, including our consult service lines and secondary inpatient site, with plans to dissolve unnecessary consult services and combine medical teams, when feasible, to reduce the risk of staff exposure and maintain reserves. For example, after elective procedures were canceled, we reduced physician staffing of our surgical comanagement service to the minimal necessary coverage. We assign nonpatient-facing clinical duties to physicians who are called off their shift, in quarantine, or mildly ill to help off-load the clinical burden. Such duties include accepting direct admission phone calls, triaging patient care calls, entering orders remotely, and assisting with care coordination needs.

Anticipate Adult Care Needs

Our pediatric institution admits select groups of adult patients with congenital or complex healthcare needs who require specialized care. Hospitalists board certified in both pediatrics and internal medicine provide consultative services to many of these patients. Anticipating that these physicians may be needed in adult facilities, we plan to dissolve this consult service and utilize our reserve pool of providers to cover their pediatric shifts if needed. Additionally, if our hospital expands coverage for adult patients, these medicine-pediatrics providers will be instrumental in coordinating that expanded effort and will serve as leaders for teams of physicians and advanced practice providers with limited or no adult medicine training.

Special Isolation Unit

Logistic planning for our SIU evolved over the first few patients with rapid-cycle feedback and learning with each admission. This feedback was facilitated with our twice-daily huddle calls, which involved all key stakeholders, including nursing and respiratory therapy representatives. For division physician staffing, higher-risk team members are excluded from working on this unit. Because the SIU was developed to care for all patients positive for COVID-19 and persons under investigation, subspecialty patients not typically cared for by Hospital Medicine at our institution are being admitted to this unit. Therefore, subspecialty divisions assign attending physicians to provide consultative services to the SIU. These consultants use the unit’s telemedicine capabilities, when feasible, to limit staff exposure and conserve PPE. Our hospital medicine leaders in the SIU proactively worked with subspecialty divisions that are anticipated to have more admissions given their at-risk patient populations, such as pulmonary medicine, cardiology, and oncology. They specifically developed staffing plans for these patients if the SIU census becomes unsustainable under Hospital Medicine alone.

Healthcare workers are experiencing numerous stressors at work and home during this tumultuous time. Our workforce is at risk of developing emotional distress and mental health concerns. A cross-sectional survey of more than 1,200 healthcare workers in China who cared for COVID-19 patients found that many experienced symptoms of psychological distress (71%), as well as depression (51%), anxiety (44%), and insomnia (34%).⁷ Hospital medicine groups should consider methods to support their staff to mitigate stressors and promote self-care.

Anticipate Childcare Issues

When we were faced with impending school and daycare closures, we surveyed our division to assess childcare needs (Table) and share resources. We created a system of emergency childcare coverage options by connecting parents with similarly aged children and who lived in geographic proximity. This approach to childcare contingency planning was shared with and adopted by other divisions within the institution.

Build Support Measures

To support each other during this particularly stressful time, we divided division members into groups or “support pods,” each facilitated by a leadership team member. Group text messages and weekly phone or video chats have promoted connectivity and peer support.

Promote Self-care

The divisional leadership team provides food and drink for staff on clinical shifts. We also collated self-care resources to share via a central repository. These resources include ideas for meditation, home education for children, parenting, exercise, faith communities, entertainment, methods to support our local community through volunteerism and donations, and mental health resources, as well as online links to these resources.

Adult health systems will be disproportionately affected as this pandemic evolves. Pediatric hospitalists have the unique opportunity to support the response efforts by maintaining teams that are flexible and adaptable to evolving community needs. To do this, team leaders need to promote transparency, share learnings, and leverage the diverse skills of team members to ensure we are ready to meet the challenges of the moment.