This year has been like no other. The pandemic continues to rage on and Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) has become integrated into the medical landscape as we address the clinical and academic missions of Penn Medicine.
Over the course of the COVID-19 surge, and re-surge, in Philadelphia, I am witnessing the exemplary commitment that our faculty, trainees, and staff are demonstrating in caring for our patients. During the early days of the pandemic, we decompressed Penn Medicine’s acute care hospitals by admitting more rehabilitation patients while limiting our outside referrals, including operationalizing an inpatient rehabilitation unit for COVID-19 disease survivors. Moreover, Penn PM&R faculty members, Dr. Frank Caldera and Dr. Ben Abramoff, are partnering with our pulmonologists, cardiologists, physical therapists and speech and language pathologists, offering an interdisciplinary outpatient clinic that provides a unique and coordinated level of rehabilitation care for these COVID-19 disease survivors.
Our education teams under the direction of Dr. David Lenrow are adapting the processes of recruiting future PM&R residents and subspecialty fellows—remotely and virtually. Our research programs have been reinstated to pre-COVID-19 disease levels of activity with strict infection precautions as defined by our University of Pennsylvania and Penn Medicine leaders. During this time, Michelle Johnson, Ph.D., Director of Penn PM&R’s Rehabilitation Robotics Laboratory, was promoted to Associate Professor in the Tenure Track at Penn, a remarkable accomplishment and strong testament to her impactful research in rehabilitation robotics.
What is inspiring about Penn Medicine is the resiliency, creativity, and agility of its faculty and staff members. This is the foundation for our medical and health care innovations, and clinical and investigative problem-solving.
Penn PM&R is learning from this COVID-19 disease experience. We are building upon those newly mastered skills and hardwiring them into our practices. For example, telemedicine is encompassing about 20% of our current clinical encounters. Our essential missions are being fulfilled while controlling the risks of infection.
As a nation, we were confronted in 2020 with the stark reality of continued racism and socioeconomic fault lines. With Penn Medicine, we are “moving forward” to recognize and eradicate racism. and mitigate social determinants of health involving rehabilitation care. Newsweek recently ranked The Penn Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine, as the second-best rehabilitation hospital in Pennsylvania, and the best in the Philadelphia area. What is particularly gratifying about this distinction is that 50% of this ranking is reputation-based, and 50% is based on the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) quality metrics such as readmissions, falls and infections, and discharges to home. These are meaningful, relevant and objective indicators of our high quality care.
After a delay due to the current pandemic, it is with much pride we bring you this newsletter. We wish you, and those whom you care about, safety, health and happiness.
Timothy R. Dillingham, MD, MS
The William J. Erdman II Professor and Chair, Physiatrist-in-Chief
Penn PM&R, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania