Will face masks become the new normal in medical offices?
Erie hospitals had been offering telemedicine for years, giving patients the opportunity to see a primary-care physician, dermatologist or other medical providers via laptop or smartphone.
A few patients took advantage of the program, but it accounted for less than 1% of all office visits as recently as a year ago, according to local hospital leaders.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic reached Erie County. It clearly had an effect, said Saint Vincent Hospital President Christopher Clark, D.O. Telemedicine was as high as 70% of our visits during the early part of the pandemic, now it s closer to one-third of our visits in December.
Saint Vincent Hospital and UPMC Hamot have been vaccinating more health-care workers against COVID-19, including those who don t work for either health system.
Both hospitals have held vaccination clinics that are open to nonaffiliated health-care workers, including dentists, school nurses, physical therapists and behavioral-health specialists. We have been vaccinating some of these independent health-care workers for the past week to 10 days, but we are increasing the number as we wind down vaccinating our own staff, said Steve Henderson, Saint Vincent s director of pharmacy.
Medical offices, school districts and other health-care organizations have scheduled the vaccinations with the hospitals.
At least 6,625 partial doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Erie County and 1,034 full, two-shot doses have been administered as of Friday afternoon, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.