Last week, over four thousand healthcare professionals and partners gathered for DOCSF’s virtual event: COVID-19: The Orthopaedic Response. Hosted by Dr. Stefano Bini, Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at UCSF and Shawna Butler, Nurse Economist and host of See You Now Podcast, the virtual event brought in over a dozen speakers from around the world to speak about their experience during COVID-19, share insights on what their organization is doing to combat the pandemic, and bring solutions to the table. 

The virtual event was much more than a sales pitch, and this global community of orthopedic leaders and innovators came armed and ready with information. A few sessions that we found to be very actionable included: 

• AAOS Shares Resources Where Members Can Access a Wide Range of Relevant & Credible COVID-19 Info- Joseph A. Bosco III, MD, FAAOS, President, AAOS
  • It was encouraging to have Dr. Bosco on the line to talk through resources and information for the orthopedic community including topics like practice management, navigation of government plans and communication. “The one silver lining is that COVID will give a boost to telemedicine utilization. I don't think we’ll ever go back to not using telemedicine.” 
• Implementing Technology in the Middle of a Crisis- Michael Blum, MD, UCSF CTIO 
  • When thinking about implementing a new technology, Dr. Blum shared “You can't think about every new vendor as just putting another product in space, you need to start thinking about the product in terms of how does that work for the consumer, how does that work for the patient?” 

Force’s CEO, Bronwyn Spira, was invited to speak about the new realities of virtual care and telemedicine. She discussed what Force is seeing from our clients during this time -- elective surgeries and pre-op classes being cancelled for the foreseeable future, care teams being asked to work remotely, IT and legal departments prioritizing digital health initiatives, and patients concerned about how to access their care plans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bronwyn also shared virtual care & telemedicine strategies to consider during this unprecedented time:

• Virtual pre-op classes instead of in-person joint classes 
• Post-op virtual rehab for patients who recently had surgeries 
• Communication via a cloud-based HIPAA compliant platform
• Alternative pain and activity management strategies for patients with cancelled surgeries

No matter the topic, the motive stayed the same for all speakers and attendees of the event: how can we help reduce the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic? The resources presented over the two days are a great way to start. Thank you to DOCSF for putting together such an inspiring conference in such a short time. We appreciate being included and look forward to seeing how this group of orthopedic leaders shapes the “new normal” in the coming weeks. 

To hear more about Force’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, visit our virtual resources page here.