We believe we’re through the peak of the surge, but we’re not ready to declare victory yet.
The Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) President, Steven N. Kalkanis, MD, FAANS, recently sat down with PBS NewsHour Correspondent William Brangham for an enlightening and encouraging look at how Henry Ford Medical Group in Detroit, Mich. is responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
Dr. Kalkanis is the CEO of Henry Ford Medical Group, a 1,900-member group of physicians and researchers responsible for all aspects of clinical performance across 40 specialties. Dr. Kalkanis serves as CEO, Senior Vice President and Chief Academic Officer. Henry Ford Medical Group has been playing an instrumental role in serving a diverse population in a COVID-19 hot spot and is seeing encouraging trends in discharge and recovery.
“We have discharged more patients than those who are being admitted,” said Dr. Kalkanis. “We have taken more patients off ventilators than those who require going on ventilators to be intubated. So we believe we are through the peak of this surge. But we’re not ready to declare victory yet, because we are being vigilant. We want to make sure that we have appropriate resources,” he added.
Dr. Kalkanis cautioned that with signs of encouragement, we must also be mindful of the potential for a resurgence.
“We need to guard against a resurgence,” said Dr. Kalkanis. “We can’t relax our precautions yet, until we understand how this works and how we can develop broader immunities because we don’t want to go through this again.”
Click here to watch Dr. Kalkanis’ PBS NewsHour interview.
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