LANSING, Mich. — Three years ago, the very first patient with COVID-19 came through the doors of Sparrow Hospital.
“It was an eerie feeling of when we had the bunny suits,"said Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Paul Entler. "A lot of different personal protective equipment, things we were doing, because we didn't know."
At that time, not much was known about the virus, but since then, doctors around the world, including at Sparrow, have been working to understand it.
"One of the things is the agility of the health care system and health care in general to adapt to a novel pandemic, that really none of us expected the really last as long as it did," Entler said.
Also during the pandemic, racial disparities in health care became more prevalent for people needing to get treated, tested or vaccinated against COVID specifically in communities of color. Entler said this is something the hospital is continuing to evaluate on how to improve for future health care.
"Sparrow has really taken a forefront in terms of the diversity, equity and inclusion in terms of parsing out data related diseases specific on ethnicity and race versus just the disease itself and really looking at ways to continue to improve access to care and those vulnerable populations before they hit the doors of the ED (emergency department) in a more proactive manner," Entler said.
Another main focus for the hospital as they continue moving forward is staffing. During the pandemic, staffing shortages in hospitals due to retirements, over capacity or people leaving the industry became a major issue. Entler said this is something the hospital is continuously trying to improve, especially as more people start coming in for other hospital-related visits other than COVID-19.
“The early stages of the pandemic when it seemed like a lull, with where were all the patients with heart failure, heart disease, where were they? They were there, but they weren't coming to our emergency departments," Entler said. "Then, they showed up in late 2020, 2021 and 2022. We're still recovering from that, in terms of the acuity and the severity of elements of these other patients outside of COVID, and it's taken its toll on our workforce.”
With the federal public health emergency for COVID expiring May 11, the hospital is shifting its focus to what comes next.
“Some of the regulations regarding our long-term, acute care hospital may impact the ability of patients to move through the system in a timely manner," Entler said. "So we're watching those closely, and really working on plans of how do we get back to that pre-COVID, knowing a lot of the benefits of moving the people through was so we could have capacity in a very challenging workforce environment.”
Entler said they're also continuing to learn more about the virus as new variants continue to evolve and long COVID becomes more prevalent.
“We're still learning about the disease and the long-term effects from it," Entler said. "It's too early to really say this is exactly what long COVID looks like and how you treat it, and right now, it's treating the symptoms and really supportive care for the patients that are affected by it.”
With the health emergency coming to an end, Entler said they'll continue to adapt and learn about COVID and any new variants in hopes of keeping the community safe.
He said as a reminder it's important for people to wash their hands, stay home when sick, get COVID tested if they have symptoms and get vaccinated to continue easing the spread.
“We will always live with COVID," Entler said. "There will be new variants, potentially new vaccines, new therapeutics, so we understand that with like any other virus, that will always be here with us.”
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