Letter to the Editor: Embracing Disruptive Change During the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Pandemic

Disruptive change was first described in 1995 by Christensen et al.¹ as a way of thinking about innovation-driven growth. The concept analogizes current practices as “sustaining innovations” and new technologies or practices that challenge the status quo as “disruptive innovations.” These “disruptions” often take advantage of different value sets to rise in the market and eventually overcome the status quo. World events can play a role in disruptive change by shifting values systems.¹ Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an example of a world event that has shifted our values as a field and as a society. Given the high rate of respiratory distress syndrome,² there have been several concerns regarding shortages in personal protective equipment and mechanical ventilation. As a result, federal and state authorities have enacted mandatory lockdowns in an attempt to “flatten the curve” of viral infection rates. Hospitals have halted non-essential hospital services and elective surgeries in preparation for shortages. Outpatient facilities are seeing fewer patients to keep with the practice of social distancing. Values have shifted from maximizing use of health care resources to “minimal necessary” use in the name of conservation. Although this new value system has led to a reduction in volume for our academic neurosurgical practice, we have embraced the concept of “disruptive change,” choosing to use this tumultuous time as an opportunity to experiment with new ideas and drive innovation.

Following the cancellation of elective cases over concerns regarding availability of essential medical equipment, our case volume has diminished substantially. Given that the responsibilities of postgraduate year (PGY) 3–7 residents typically revolve around operating under the supervision of our faculty, this disruption has led to a reduction in educational opportunities for our residents. In addition, there are concerns over the exposure of our residents to SARS-CoV-2. We have addressed these concerns through the creation of a distance-learning program and a new scheduling system.

Through the use of Google Classroom (Google Inc., Mountain View, California, USA), formal lesson plans with prespecified topics, learning goals, and suggested readings are updated to prepare residents for weekly lectures. With the use of MedOne (Thieme, New York, New York, USA) playlists, residents are able to access the material from virtually anywhere. The distance-learning program culminates in a series of interactive lectures given by faculty on the Zoom (Zoom, San Jose, California, USA) platform. These cover high-yield board review or topics pertinent to neurosurgical practice. A formal take-home quiz highlighting the salient points is given afterwards. Similarly, our weekly case conferences have moved to the Zoom platform. During spine, tumor, trauma, and endovascular case conferences, attendings discuss challenging cases with the residents along with the pitfalls and perils of each approach. We have recently converted our morbidity and mortality conference into this format as well.

Our scheduling system revolves around several rotating teams to cover our affiliated hospitals. These teams were structured based on patient volume at each site. Oshei Children's Hospital and Erie County Medical Center are each covered by 2 residents who rotate weekly. The resident at Oshei takes call until 5 pm, after which the citywide night float resident takes over. Because Erie County Medical Center has its own call-pool, the resident there takes home-call for the week that they are working. Buffalo General Medical Center/Gates Vascular Institute is covered by weekly rotating teams of 4 consisting of 1 chief, 1 PGY 4–6, and 2 PGY 2s. Our night float resident is also PGY 4–6, and duty is limited to 1 week. Cases are covered by on duty residents depending on weekly volume. Our interns are currently on off-service rotations but are on standby if additional help is needed. This system addresses resident safety by limiting exposure, provides roles for our mid-level residents, spreads out night-float to prevent any 1 resident from losing operative time, and provides coverage in the event any resident becomes sick. In addition, it is compliant with duty-hour restrictions.

The new value of “social distancing” has proven to be a disruption to our practice as well. Patient encounters have shifted toward the minimization of contact, requiring us to alter our typical approach to patients. Medical traditions such as team rounds have been abandoned in favor of smaller “teams” consisting of only the attending and resident directly managing the patient. If coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is suspected, certain consults are now completed by chart review, provided that another provider has examined the patient (e.g., the emergency department resident), as outlined in recent policies from our hospital systems. In the outpatient clinical practice, we have implemented tele-health-video visits. The response of our patients to this has been quite positive, with many of them enjoying the ease of access to a medical professional. Although there are issues in assessing the subtlety of certain conditions over video, this modality will certainly have its uses in the future for routine follow-up visits. We envision tele-health as a way to more closely monitor our patients without burdening them with additional visits to our clinic. This is especially important for our patients who live in the rural areas of Western New York who may delay visits or be lost to follow-up given the distance from their home.

Looking toward the future, we anticipate other disruptions to our practice will occur as a result of the current pandemic. There are numerous reports emerging of SARS-CoV-2 infections being linked to strokes, seizures, and other neurologic conditions.³ What percentage of these will require neurosurgical intervention is unclear; however, our practice continues to prepare for a potential influx of new patients. We expect that we will soon see the personal and economic consequences of patients having to reschedule their surgery or choosing to “wait out” their symptoms due to fear. Early detection of these indirect disruptions of the pandemic is critical and our practice has already begun monitoring for these complications.

Controlling the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is of the utmost importance; however, we must remember to take time to look at things from different perspectives. The disruption to our field has already spurred innovation and led to a shift in values. Within weeks, our practice developed a tele-health platform and completely overhauled resident education. Likewise, the current outbreak has forced us to abandon long-standing traditions. Just a few months ago, it would have been inconceivable that we would minimize contact with our patients. Although some changes are unlikely to continue long term, it is important that we continue to embrace the concept of disruptive change. As a field, we ought to view this time as a unique opportunity to question norms, implement new ideas, and drive innovation so that when we emerge from the fallout, we are equipped to build a better future.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Ryan Hess: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Methodology, Conceptualization. Jennifer Z. Mao: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Methodology, Conceptualization. Kyungduk Rho: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Methodology, Conceptualization. Asham Khan: Writing - review & editing. Elad Levy: Writing - review & editing. John Pollina: Writing - review & editing. Jeffrey P. Mullin: Writing - review & editing.