CORONA VIRUS UPDATES as of March 30th
Well Visits Continue, as AAP Recommends
The American Academy of Pediatrics has reaffirmed its recommendation that all routine Well Child Care continue as usual, given its important role in keeping kids healthy. We certainly appreciate, and agree with that!
We urge you to keep your scheduled Well Visit appointment and to make one if you haven’t gotten around to it yet or might be overdue. We have open slots every day, and both our Car-Wait option and enhanced cleaning protocols (see below) have been huge hits with the families we’ve seen in the office this past week. We’ll keep you safe during your visit, and we’ll keep your child healthy as we monitor growth and development, answer your questions, address your concerns, and provide critical vaccinations.
In an effort to protect your family and our staff we will be designating our Belvidere office as a Well Child AND Well Caregiver site. We will continue to allow only the child and 1 caregiver into the office.
We will still offer morning Well Child and Well caregiver appointments at our Saddle Bronc location with the afternoon reserved for screened sick visits.
NEW STARTING MARCH 30,2020: In an effort to Make Our Waiting Rooms Even Safer
Everyone who enters either office will be screened using a set of screening questions about recent (previous 14 days) fever, cough, runny nose, shortness of breath, travel outside of El Paso or exposure to a known case of COVID19. The MA will take everyone’s temperature and then offer a squirt of hand sanitizer.
Any positive screening questions or anyone with a temperature > 99.0 the family will be asked to wait and at least 14 days to reschedule the Well Check, if sick, they may use our Telemedicine options if symptoms of illness progress and they feel the need for further evaluation.
Dedicated Exam Rooms for Non-Infectious Visits
We continue to have dedicated exam rooms that will be used ONLY for non-infectious visits.
We will, of course, continue to clean and sanitize all rooms to the fullest possible extent after every patient visit, but we will have separate exam rooms designated for patients who are NOT potentially infectious.
Continuing a Plan to Make Our Waiting Rooms Safe:
Beginning Monday, March 30th, we will implement a small but significant change in our check-in process for ill children that have been given an appointment to be evaluated at our Saddle Bronc office.
Now that Coronavirus cases have been announced here in El Paso, and until the pandemic has subsided and the threat to public health has returned to far-less-heightened levels, we will be asking all patients who exhibit symptoms consistent with the virus — fever and cough — to remain in their cars. One adult may enter the office to check in the patient and then return to the car to wait. A medical assistant will then come to the car to screen the patient. The family will wait in their car to be seen by one of our physicians.
This process will ensure that anyone who MAY pose a risk of infection remains at a safe distance from other patients and family members in our waiting rooms, and it will also ensure that our waiting rooms remain as safe and sanitary as possible for patients and family members who come to our office for well visits and other, less potentially serious illnesses.
Remember, the purpose of all of these measures is maximize efforts to prevent the spread of this virus in our community to keep those most vulnerable as safe as we can.
Let’s all do our part!
Remember to keep your distance
Just a reminder of importance of NOT have play dates during a time of critical social distancing. Family time outdoors is still highly recommended!
Please use our Telemedicine options: To schedule a Telemedicine visit, download the VeMiDoc APP, register, select a doctor, select an available appointment time, you will be prompted for a code, the code for El Paso Health is epheppa, for all other patients, eppa.
We will soon be partnering with another telemedicine provider Anytime Pediatrics, in an effort to offer more options to you to connect with us when needed.
