Protecting the patient with lung transplant during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, USA

Abstract

When the novel coronavirus began spreading rapidly in New York City, pulmonary transplant patients were considered as one of the highest medically vulnerable patient populations. It became a priority to devise a plan to safely provide quality care to patients, with as minimal exposure to the outside world as possible. Utilizing a telemedicine system that was already in place, the program was able to be expanded to include all of our 77 transplanted patients who would track their vital signs and spirometry at home twice daily, while also having telemedicine visits with recent blood work with a member of our team. This allowed other team members to provide care to COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized and mechanically ventilated.

Aim: This paper aims to demonstrate one way a successful pulmonary transplant program kept all patients safe from the novel coronavirus and demonstrates the success of social distancing and quarantining in an extremely vulnerable population.

Methods and Results: There were three main components that led to the success of this program during the first 10 weeks of the pandemic: (1) dividing our team to promote social distancing; (2) quarantining all patients and families; and (3) using the already-in-place home monitoring devices to monitor vital signs twice daily for all patients. This frequent monitoring allowed us to track trends and provide treatment with as minimal exposure to the outside world as possible.

Conclusion: Early quarantine and early adaptation of utilizing telemedicine helped promote positive outcomes and decreased hospitalizations.