What Mercy's New CEO Learned About COVID-19 from His Patients

When Dr. David Maine dons the necessary personal protective equipment, and visits with his patients who have painful or terminal conditions, it reminds him that the challenges of Covid-19 go well beyond those who contract the virus.

Maine, who is a physician specializing in pain medicine, officially took over as CEO of Mercy Health Services, parent of Mercy Medical Center, on July 1. He is the first physician to lead the hospital and health system in its 145-year history. He has been transitioning into his new role amid what has been widely identified as the most tumultuous and challenging period the health care industry has faced in the U.S. Even so, it has been important to him to continue seeing his own patients each week.

Dealing directly with patients has served to really "put things in perspective," Maine said. It also gives him a sense of what his employees and the more than 200,000 patients they serve are seeing and feeling every day. The visits help Maine keep in touch with "the pulse" of his organization, he said, and have helped shape some of the decisions and initiatives he has helped lead within Mercy over the last few months.

"My patients have always been why I do what I do, and I think that goes hand in hand with the kind of leader I am," he said.

Maine said he realized how difficult it was for many of his patients to navigate the health system, which was making significant adjustments in response to the pandemic. Covid-19 made managing their own health and care even more complicated and confusing. Some were afraid to come to the hospital or their doctor's office at all, due to perceived risk of coronavirus infection. And many patients were impacted by mandated temporary halts on elective surgeries and procedures at Maryland hospitals through early May. Maine said he heard about the difficulties folks were facing from his patients and their family members.

It was "eye opening," he said, and it showed him how important it was for Mercy to ensure that even those patients who did not have the coronavirus, got ongoing access to care.

"Early on, we thought a tsunami was coming at us. There was tremendous uncertainty and so much was changing every day," Maine said. "Hearing how hard it was for my patients to figure things out really stuck with me. I knew it was important for us to do everything possible to make sure we were providing access across all service lines, uninterrupted."

The recognition of the needs of patients like Maine's led Mercy to pursue several new initiatives, like the build out of an entire wing of clinical spaces dedicated to serving Covid-19 patients. The 32-bed cute care unit, which was erected inside an unused space on the 17th floor of the Mary Catherine Bunting Center on Calvert Street. The new unit is similar to emergency units many hospitals statewide have set up, but is unique in that it it sits separate from the rest of the hospital's clinical spaces. It allowed Mercy to treat those affected by Covid-19 while minimizing risk to surgical and cancer patients, who could continue to come to the hospital for care without worry of being directly exposed.

Mercy also rolled out a brand new telemedicine operation so patients who couldn't connect with their doctors face-to-face could still do so virtually. Prior to Covid-19, Mercy's more than 200 physicians had conducted virtually no telemedicine visits. The system had not even planned to roll out a telemedicine system until fiscal year 2021, according to a spokesperson, but dramatically accelerated its deployment plans when the virus hit. As a result, Mercy physicians conducted more than 47,000 telemedicine encounters, including 32,000 primary care visits in fiscal 2020, which ended June 30.

Standing up these new resources has not been easy, he said, and much of it has been costly. For example, the build out of the special Covid-19 unit alone cost $12.5 million, and Mercy got some financing help from Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. But Maine said he has been proud of the work Mercy has done, and how its teams have continued to adapt "without a playbook." Maine expects more changes will be necessary as the pandemic progresses. He said he will continue to learn as he goes, and to see his patients, to help him stay "engaged" and "present."

Article written and published by the Baltimore Business Journal