FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE DRIVEN BY INNOVATION, SHARED MISSION
A half-century after RUSH Medical College first opened, the growing school and hospital celebrated the opening of a new laboratory — and the Chicago Tribune was there to cover it. On
Dec. 5, 1893, the Tribune reported about an official at the event: “He thought it to be the duty of this generation to prepare better
opportunities for its successors.”
It’s a sentiment that resonates today.
Just as the Chicago Tribune, which celebrates its 175th anniversary this month, has
erected new buildings and evolved with our ever-changing city, RUSH has continued its spirit of growth and innovation.
Q You took the reins at RUSH University Medical Center in May 2019, just a few months before the global COVID pandemic. How did RUSH’s legacy of innovation and providing community-wide care prepare you and the RUSH staff for this health crisis?
DR. OMAR LATEEF: There was so much unknown about COVID-19 when it first emerged at the end of 2019. Then we saw it hit Milan (Italy), then Seattle. Amid the uncertainty, RUSH decided as an organization that this pandemic would be our biggest challenge, so let’s not wait.
Weeks before the first patient came in, we started to undergo physical and strategic transformations. We called doctors from around the country who were already caring for COVID patients to ask them what they would’ve done differently. And then we emptied out the hospital
When a crisis emerges — such as COVID-19 or any other large-scale emergency — a hospital (much like a newspaper) needs to have the best tools and facilities ready to roll. Ultimately, though, it’s about the people. How a staff is trained, how they work together and what their shared mission is will determine its success.
This is the third of a three-part look at RUSH University Medical Center’s role in Chicago’s history. In this conversation, Dr. Omar Lateef, president and CEO of the RUSH University System for Health, discusses how an innovative spirit at RUSH prepared it not just for a global pandemic but for the vast and rapid changes in medical care, today and into the future.
as much as possible, we added new beds and created new units, all before our first COVID patient was admitted.
But COVID also put an even brighter spotlight on the health disparities in our city. During COVID, RUSH cared for and treated the sickest patients regardless of their race, income or ability to pay, reflecting our long-standing commitment to our community. Later, with the help of our community partners, RUSH physicians, nurses and students took to the streets to vaccinate thousands of people.
Q RUSH was one of the most prepared hospital systems in the United States. How did the butterfly-shaped building called the “Tower” come to be built to handle a bioterror attack or pandemic?
OL: It took foresight. Ten years ago, the iconic Tower was built to be a revolutionary structure, our 14-story structure was developed to provide an unprecedented level of readiness for large-scale health emergencies, including infectious disease outbreaks like COVID-19.
We wanted to differentiate ourselves and be available to patients 24 hours for complex illnesses.
Q And what was one of the biggest benefits the Tower provided for treating COVID?
OL: When positive COVID cases surged, RUSH could adapt quickly. We created new critical care units for patients and employed novel techniques like ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) and proning to save more lives. ECMO is a machine that functions as your heart or your lungs. It’s like an external lung, and it’s typically used in the operating room, not throughout the hospital.
Well, with severe COVID, patients’ lungs were so damaged, so putting them on this device was a gamechanger. You could take a person about to die and buy the time to save their life. But we had to have dedicated people in the room, dedicated nurses, giant rooms. There were nights we were handling more than 10 at a time.
Our preparation and success in intervention and treatment was the result of our physical structure and philosophy of care.
Q What’s a key lesson RUSH learned during the pandemic about managing care through a crisis?
OL: With COVID, there was no way to prepare a healthcare staff for what was going to come. It was a new disease, and there was so much we didn’t know yet. But we opened our doors to our community. We accepted transfers from throughout the city. We had staff working all night, then going home, changing their clothes in their garages, not hugging their children, taking a shower, and hoping they were OK. It was isolating, it was lonely, it was challenging. And we had to build a belief system that this is what we were going to do. Our staff responded and said “We’re in. We’re built for this. We’re going to make a difference.” That didn’t come from hubris; it came from being a truly mission-driven organization.
“(When COVID hit) we had to build a belief system that this is what we were going to do. Our staff responded and said ‘We’re in. We’re built for this. We’re going to make a difference.’” — DR. OMAR LATEEF
Q Telehealth and other innovative methods to connect with patients expanded during the pandemic. What did RUSH learn from the pandemic that it will apply to evolve health care delivery now and into the future?
OL: The reality is patient care is transitioning from inpatient (hospital) care to outpatient (clinic) care and RUSH is on the cutting edge there too. The soon-to-open Joan and Paul Rubschlager Building on our University Medical Center campus will be the gold standard for state-ofthe-art outpatient cancer and other complex care.
RUSH is also the only hospital system in Chicago offering outpatient brain surgery. People with essential or Parkinsonian hand tremors can receive this focused ultrasound treatment — no open surgery, no anesthesia — and within a few hours be able to hold a fork, write their name, button a button and return home the same day.
And RUSH Oak Park Hospital is the site of one of the few virtual cardiac rehab programs in the region. Patients don’t need to come into a facility for a traditional recovery plan, they do it remotely, which is great for patients who work full-time. It keeps their recovery on track.
Q How do you feel about the future of healthcare?
OL: I couldn’t be more excited about the future of medicine. The pandemic served as a wakeup call for healthcare to break down the silos between institutions, between the government and pharma and to say, “work together.” If the lesson from the pandemic is that together we can do a lot more than we can as independent healthcare partners, then the future will be amazing.
Q Is there anything else you want to tell us about what will drive RUSH’s future?
OL: Take a walk down the hallways, through the buildings and around the campus. The vibe is there. Our people love what they do and why they do it. Employees are committed to our mission and values with compassion. This translates into a dedication — shared by all members of the RUSH community — to providing the highest quality patient care.