Importance of inclusive leadership in the pandemic response: the critical role of the physician

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in multiple logistical and communication challenges in the face of ever-changing guidance, disease prevalence and increasing evidence.

Methods: At Stanford Children's Health (SCH), we felt physician input was an important element of pandemic response infrastructure, given our lens into patient care across its continuum. We formed the COVID-19 Physician Liaison Team (CPLT) consisting of representative physicians across the care continuum. The CPLT met regularly and communicated to the SCH's COVID-19 task force responsible for the ongoing organisation pandemic response. The CPLT problem-solved around various issues including testing, patient care on our COVID-19 inpatient unit and communication gaps.

Results: The CPLT contributed to conservation of rapid COVID-19 tests for critical patient care needs, decreased incident reports on our COVID-19 inpatient unit and helped enhance communication across the organisation, with a focus on physicians.

Conclusion: In retrospect, the approach taken was in line with a distributed leadership model with physicians as integral members contributing to active lines of communication, continual problem-solving and new pathways to provide care.