By Andrea Martin
Second-year family medicine resident Clay Cooper, M.D., MBA, was in Colorado the week of March 9, preparing to begin a two-week practice management elective at University of Colorado, just as the nation’s COVID-19 outbreak was beginning to spread.
“[That] Wednesday I confirmed with leadership at Duke and University of Colorado that it was still fine of me to come, and it was,” Cooper says. “By Friday there were cases in Denver and schools were closed—and schools were closed in Durham, too. That's the day we had our first cases in [Duke Family Medicine Center].”
After speaking with his residency leadership and the University of Colorado on Friday, he returned to Durham on March 14 ready to get to work. With now two weeks free on his schedule, he was able to help Duke Family Medicine Center prep for a drive-through clinic that would begin the following week.
“It also made sense … given I was supposed to be on a practice management elective [at University of Colorado],” Cooper says. “I focused my time on the drive through outside and was able to put my business school supply chain education to work looking at throughput capacity, bottle necks, and optimal staffing so that the drive-through is efficient and also has depth of staff.”
As education chief, Cooper also began reworking the residents’ schedules to account for canceled electives or patient volume on certain electives, and placed residents where they could be better utilized. Two moved to Employee Occupational Health & Wellness to assist with screening employees, another split time between Duke Family Medicine Center and the MICU at the Durham VA Medical Center, and others began conducting telehealth visits, working in the drive-through testing site, or continuing with routine care at Duke Family Medicine Center.
“People are just jumping in to whatever role is needed,” he says. “Whether it is in-clinic, outside drive-through, people coming up with dot-phrases, or covering each other's in-baskets. Everyone is just pitching in in different ways than what we have had to in the past. It’s been an incredible team effort.”
Note: Duke Health’s drive-through COVID-19 testing sites are by appointment only and require a provider’s referral.
Special thanks to Jacob Christy who transcribed the interview.