Dr. Steven Corwin of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital poses in an undated photo. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Handout via REUTERS
Corwin spoke to Reuters about the lessons learned from this period of tragedy, loss – and ultimately, hope.A: Part of the issue for us as a country, let alone hospital systems, was a failure of imagination. There were some warning signs like swine flu and Ebola, but pandemic preparedness was not the highest item on everyone’s list. It obviously should have been much higher.A: We started to bear the brunt of it in March and April into early May, when things were really horrific.
Q: COVID-19 has forced so many companies and industries to rethink the way they do things – is the same true for hospitals? We have also learned that the system as a whole is more resilient than a single hospital. Everything is so interconnected and interdependent, that if one hospital is getting overwhelmed, a crisis is less likely if other parts of the system are helping out.A: This crisis has been a real eye-opener. Coupled with everything happening around the country, such as with the George Floyd protests, we felt we needed to double down on our commitments.