Dr Harlan Levine on City of Hope's Efforts to Address COVID-19 in Cancer Care

Testing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) before procedures and admissions has become a fixture of City of Hope's efforts to protect patients with cancer and our staff. Additionally, there are over 2 dozen projects focusing on aspects related to better controlling the pandemic, said Harlan Levine, MD, president of Strategy and Business Ventures at City of Hope.

Transcript

AJMC®: COVID-19 has changed ways of delivering care and conducting clinical trials. What strategies has City of Hope developed to deliver best-in-class care and foster innovation during the pandemic?

Dr Levine: Our philosophy is that cancer doesn't stop for COVID-19 and neither should we. As a NCI-Designated Cancer Center taking care of immunocompromised patients, we already excel at protecting patients against infections and preventing them from happening in the first place. But the COVID pandemic has led us to reevaluate all of our processes, and we've made changes to enhance our protection of our patients, but also our staff.

Initially, we did reduce our volumes, but at no point did we stop the necessary treatments or procedures or bone marrow transplants that people needed. Currently, to protect our patients and our staff, we’re testing for COVID-19 before most procedures and admissions. We also have drive-through testing for our out-patient clinics and for staff that come to the clinic.

Like all hospitals, we've had to modify our visitor policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. From a global point of view, our scientists have contributed to the global efforts to stem this horrible pandemic. We have over 2 dozen projects that either focus on vaccines, treatments, diagnostics, or other screening tools to help us better control the pandemic.