Report From the Front: Weathering COVID’s Ongoing Storm

Ann De Los Santos, director of physician relations and strategic growth, Ascension Texas

In spite of the population of Austin, Texas growing by a net of 150 people a day — and with it, an increase in demand for services — surgical volume at Ascension Texas dropped during the pandemic’s early days, when Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order mandating a pause in elective surgeries.

“Our leadership team had all eyes on our department,” says Ann De Los Santos, director of physician relations and strategic growth at Ascension Texas. “They really wanted to know: What are you doing to stop the bleeding? What are you doing to get our surgical volume back to black?”

Unlike Austin, Chicago is what Jennifer Lofgren, regional director of network development at Loyola Medicine, describes as a “shrinking, competitive market,” where growth is even more of a challenge.

“We saw almost a 70 percent decline immediately in surgery and procedure volume,” Lofgren says. “After the mandated elective surgery hold was lifted, restoring that procedural volume became the number-one priority.”

De Los Santos and Lofgren recently described pressing challenges their teams faced, and solutions they created on the fly to keep field communications flowing, report actionable intelligence to their leaders, and help their organizations weather the storm.

Read the full story now for their insights:

Riding the Waves of COVID and Pushing Progress in Physician Relations

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President