OrthoSpineNews interviews HSS surgeon-in-chief Bryan T. Kelly, MD, MBA who discussed the “Return to New Normal” plans being implemented at HSS following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Kelly noted, “Our process has four phases. The first phase – the alpha phase and during the height of the crisis, was when we were only doing surgical emergencies. In phase one, we began doing urgent cases – for those patients who had been delayed for six weeks or more and further delay would compromise their outcome due to debilitating pain or exacerbation of underlying medical comorbidities. In phase two, which we are currently in, we included priority, non-elective surgeries. Phase three will be when we are allowed to perform elective surgery again. At this point there remains a ban on such procedures in New York City. When we do recommence elective surgeries, it will only be on low risk patients who have no comorbidities. Then the fourth and final phase will be when we take ‘all comers.'”

“We are attempting to titrate a slow expansion, and our priority over the next couple of weeks is to pay close attention to the outcomes we are seeing," he added. "It is a good sign that during the emergent phase we did not see a bump in postoperative complications—as that was in the peak of the epidemic. We are fortunate to have a surgical oversight committee to ensure that these measures are all within the appropriate indications based on urgency and safety guidelines,” said Dr. Kelly.

“Our COVID preparedness and response team worked on ramping things down, along the way developing a pandemic playbook to document exactly what measures we enacted. In the future, when any type of similar crisis emerges, we will know what we did and what we need to do better. For example, the leadership of the ‘return to normal team’ articulated all of the different workstreams, i.e., what they did, why, and how effective it was," he concluded. 

Read the full article at Orthospinenews.com.