From distilleries to the State House: Garnering support during COVID-19

DW Weekly talked to Art P. Saavedra, MD, PhD, MBA, at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, about his efforts to collect and donate supplies, and raise awareness for the front line health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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DW Weekly: Tell us about your efforts to support the front line workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Why did you get involved and who did you band together with?

Dr. Saavedra: I think the first thing was the realization that we wanted to keep as many people in the workforce safe to take care of patients. If they got sick, then we would be depleted. We wanted to make sure that we behaved not as an institution in our own silos, but as a community. A few of us got together — myself from an academic institution, a pediatrician from the community, and others from various sectors — to think about and discuss how we could act as one. How do we share? How do we move forward?

DW Weekly: You noticed that there were three buckets of problems during the pandemic — the first being the dearth of PPE supplies. What did you do to tackle this problem?

Dr. Saavedra: When we looked at supply, we very quickly realized that some supplies were coming in internationally and so they were just getting quarantined. We also realized that sometimes institutions with more bargaining power and more of a presence could secure these supplies more easily and then share with other institutions with less bargaining power.

We also learned that we needed to mobilize the community because people were very interested to make donations but didn’t know where to donate or what to donate. We looked everywhere for supplies. We looked at big companies that could send us items, but we also looked at other smaller businesses in town that could give us stuff like tractor masks, eyewear, gloves, gowns, and masks of all types. We even reached out to a local distillery to help us make alcohol.

We started making these inventories and realized that while a lot of the donations were not medical grade, healthy everyday people could use them. We were, overall, investigating the sources of supply chain deficits but also creating new supply inventories.

DW Weekly: The second challenge you all tackled was making sure the PPE supplies went to those who were most in need. What did that entail?

Dr. Saavedra: The second question was: Can we create a market of our own so that if we couldn’t get supplies from other states or internationally, are there people in our community who had supplies and weren’t going to be using them? Was there a way to connect the front line workers and those who had supplies? Could we be the intermediaries and the communications board for people to know what’s needed and what’s available?

We created a spreadsheet of people who needed something and a different spreadsheet for people who had something and we jokingly referred to it as a dating site. We learned that dentists — who weren’t working because the ADA recommended that they not see patients because of exposure from drilling — had all of this PPE. They had a lot of supplies and there were people who needed it. Importantly, we realized that those people who had shut down their practices had no source of income. What if they sold their PPE to people who were willing to buy it? We developed a website called Equip C-Ville to connect these different people. We did not participate in the exchange of money ourselves, but we were that board to facilitate that exchange. This website also linked to a larger website where the community was trying to help one another, offering daycare and commuting help.

DW Weekly: You also advocated for additional support and testing to your state and local governments. Tell us about that.

Dr. Saavedra: We realized we also needed to really raise awareness at the level of not just our community but the entire state that we were noticing some specific needs and wanted to learn about how to improve those needs. We posted a letter to Gov. Ralph Northam requesting additional support and testing. One of the people in our group drafted the letter and sent it out, and within hours we had hundreds of signatures. The point we were trying to make was that people want to work and see patients, but in doing that we don’t want to deplete the workforce and the only way we’re going to prevent that is through obtaining PPE.

DW Weekly: What type of support have you received as a result from your advocacy efforts?

Dr. Saavedra: That lead to a lot of incredible things. As a result of this, our local delegates started getting involved. We were having hour-long meetings once a week over Zoom and literally one of the delegates joined every single time. We had representatives there talking to us and we were able to have high-level conversations about the PPE supply and how to manage quarantines of supplies in different ports. This was all exciting because it was community-driven and physician-led, but we were able to have really productive conversations with the people who were able to make things happen.

DW Weekly: How have your efforts expanded beyond your community?

Dr. Saavedra: Other districts started asking us for protocols and how we did things, so our initiatives expanded to other health districts. I serve on the advocacy committee for the Medical Society of Virginia, so most of that activity was in that role. I was also the inaugural president of Virginia Dermatology Society, now past president. In those two roles I was able to have a platform to get bigger entities moving. The MSV sent out our information on what we did using their listserv and we were able to reach other institutions as well as smaller practices not affiliated with academic institutions with weaker supply chains. We were able to basically reach the entire state of Virginia.

DW Weekly: How have your efforts affected you as not only a dermatologist but as a member of the medical community?

Dr. Saavedra: It’s been an incredible experience. I love being a dermatologist. It is the most important thing I’ve done in my professional career. However, before I was a dermatologist, I was an MD, and it was also wonderful to identify with all these other people as a physician. We are all physicians trying to do great things. That identity and way of relating to other physicians was really wonderful. I also never really thought of myself of as an “advocacy person.” However, I started going to the AADA’s annual Legislative Conference three years ago and I caught the advocacy bug there. I wouldn’t have been able to do this if it hadn’t been for the skill sets I learned there, for example, learning how to speak to a representative, and learning that it’s okay to send a letter or show up at their offices. I am very comfortable talking at that level now. Overall, I feel incredibly proud about all of this. When things like this pandemic happen, people often react with fear. However, you must flip that fear into action and community service. It will make a difference.

Art P. Saavedra, MD, PhD, MBA, is the Kenneth Greer Endowed Professor and chair of dermatology and chief of ambulatory strategy and operations at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

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Are you on the front lines managing COVID-19 patients? Share your story with DWW. Email dweditor@aad.org.