Medical clinic modifies operations amid pandemic

Glacier Medical Associates physicians, nurses and the staff are learning to adapt amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In less than a month, the medical clinic has implemented a screening procedure for patients, implemented visits via telemedicine and created innovative ways to assist their patients whether they are sick or well.

“We’re being constantly flexible,” said Dr. Jennie Eckstrom. “It’s been exciting to see people come together and adapt to the change.”

Glacier Medical Associates specializes in family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and geriatrics, and has 16 providers including 12 physicians. The clinic treats 35,000 patients.

When the coronavirus was confirmed in Seattle, GMA leadership in early March began to monitor the situation even more closely, knowing that they needed to prepare their clinic. They began to limit their own travel, inventory protective personal equipment for their staff and reached out to the University of Washington to implement procedures for the clinic.

GMA also continues to coordinate with North Valley Hospital, Kalispell Regional Medical Center and the Flathead County Health Department in dealing withe pandemic.

Outside the clinic, Eckstrom says she’s encouraged by seeing quiet streets in downtown Whitefish, because although tough for businesses, it means that the community cares enough about each other to remain home and slow the spread of the virus.

“As a medical providers on the front line of this, we appreciate the person who doesn’t go to the grocery store every week, or the person who wears a mask when they go out, and the person who says home,” she said. “This is what will allow the number of cases to decrease and the decisions you make help to not make others sick.”

At the GMA clinic on Baker Avenue, all patients, whether sick or well, now go through a screening procedure in the clinic’s parking lot. Patients remain in their car and are screened by a health-care provider for fever and respiratory symptoms.

Those with symptoms are asked to wait in their car and are assessed by a medical provider to determine further testing. Patients with no symptoms are directed to a designated portion of the clinic.

Some patients have opted to meet with a provider electronically receiving care through telemedicine, which the clinic had prepared but hadn’t utilized until the outbreak. Other patients, particularly those who come to the clinic on a regular basis to have blood drawn or for an injection, are treated right at their car.

“We want to provide them with the care they need,” Eckstrom said. “In preparing for this we knew that we were still going to have to find a way to treat our patients who are coming in for routine and preventive care.”

Eckstrom says by allowing some patients, particularly those who are in the high-risk category for COVID-19, to remain in their vehicle it minimizes their contact with others while still providing them care.

GMA leadership continues to meet two to three times per week to evaluate the situation and make changes to procedures as necessary.

“We want to make sure we’re doing what we need to do to keep our providers, staff and our patients safe,” Eckstrom said.

There’s a lot to be encouraged about, Eckstrom says, that people are doing to prevent the spread of the virus — following the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control guidelines to wear masks in public, remaining at home, and social distancing by remaining 6-feet from others.

“From a social standpoint it’s interesting because this is something we’re being asked to do for the greater good,” she said. “I don’t know something like this has been asked of us as a society since World War II.”

As the number of confirmed cases begin to slow, Eckstrom says it’s a positive looking forward.

“It’s encouraging because it means what we as health-care providers locally, nationwide and globally are doing is working,” she said. “Those recommendations for social distancing, staying at home and washing our hands, those are working.”

GMA continues to plan for the future also.

Work is still occurring on its full-service medical clinic at the former Plum Creek administrative site in Columbia Falls. The clinic is expected to open in the fall.