How to be good to the humans in healthcare during COVID-19

This is a scary time for us all. The physicians, nurses, medical providers, home health aides, administrative staff, sterile processing teams, nursing home staff, cafeteria staff, and cleaners (everyone) on the front lines are humans too, and they're scared too. But, man, are there a lot of signs appearing that we humans can be pretty good to each other. In the daily mix of love and outrage we all feel about our American healthcare system, the scales tip toward love right now. Here's what I'm inspired by and what we can do to help:

Protecting people in healthcare - First and foremost, we need to do everything we can to ensure the safety of people who don't get to shelter-in-place or self-quarantine. There are shortages of protective equipment including masks, gloves, gowns, shields, sanitizer, and growing call from the front lines to #GetMePPE started by our friend and physician advocate Esther Choo, MD. In light of that, people are starting to donate their own personal supplies to doctors and hospitals in need. This doctor was given 125 masks and the Department of Defense just announced releasing more equipment. We should all be doing everything we can to protect these providers, starting with staying at home to help #flattenthecurve and including rapidly scaling up testing.

Making life a little easier - Free parking at hospitals (here in San Francisco it can be more than $30 a day for employees), babysitting, errand. and dog-walking networks set up by medical students to support medical staff, making it easier to credential, comply and reimburse for telemedicine, restaurants and caterers delivering food to hospital workers...there are so many stories of people supporting the people in healthcare in big and small ways.

Supporting healthcare professional's mental health - Wonderful to see Headspace announce today that anyone with a valid NPI can now sign up for a free subscription for the rest of 2020. Uncommon Bold signed up our whole own team for subscriptions last week, the meditation program is so useful for managing anxiety. Ten Percent Happier is doing that too. And, thank you to leading healthcare organizations that have already invested in benefit services like Lyra Health for their teams. We already had a crisis of burnout and physician suicide in this country before COVID put extra stress on our system.

Sharing information - Medical professionals are sharing what they know with each other as quickly as possible. One physician's YouTube video about how to safely connect four patients to one ventilator has been shared by the CDC and already viewed more than 200,000 times. An article from two physicians last week shared potentially vital information about cytokine storm syndrome. Labs are sharing advice and testing resources.We're seeing our health IT clients sending out new best practices and help with technology for setting up notifications, telemedicine, curbside screenings, physician credentialing, shift scheduling and secure messaging. Our own designer Joanne Lam's beautiful, sharable version of the #flattenthecurve graphic has now been translated into a dozen languages by helpful volunteers online.

Saying thank you - President Obama sharing thanks to medical professionals who are having to sleep in their garages and office floors to keep their families safe. People in France and Spain giving a cheer for people on the front lines every night at 8:00. The New York Hospital Association put together a celebrity support message video. Even all the individual messages of support for colleagues. It is heartwarming that medical professionals are being thanked for their sacrifice and service.

Doing your part - If you are healthy and able, one of the best ways you can say thank you and help save lives today is to give blood. Blood banks across the country are at critical shortages from people staying home — especially the higher-risk seniors who are a major donor supply. Blood donors saved my life in 2016 when I needed 32 units in just 6 hours and helped me get off a ventilator and out of the ICU in just a few days. There are patients every day like me who can't stay home and they're counting on you. I remember a woman who coordinates blood supply at a Santa Rosa hospital telling me that she had never, ever called the blood bank and been told they couldn't send supply when she needed it. Make sure that continues during this crisis. Follow Dr. Silverman's and Dr. Awdish's advice:

There's a lot of good happening out there in healthcare today. What stories of good have I missed? What calls to action can I help share?

Stay safe everyone. Wash your hands. Donate blood. Flatten the curve. Let's get through this together.