It’s been a busy few weeks and I wanted to take a minute to recognize our Larkin Family and our volunteers who inspire me to do more every day.
All of these things happened because of them. What we are doing together will be written about in history books about the great 2020 pandemic, because we chose not to be afraid but to stick together and fight as the Larkin Family that we are. 
Rapid/High Output COVID19 testing:
Under the leadership of Aron Banks, who survived a fulminant viral Myocarditis several years ago, and invested his life savings and time the last 2 years to put together a full service molecular lab with PCR and Next Gen Sequencing Capabilities with the assistance of our partners at the Charite Hospital in Berlin, Dr Carsten Tschope and Dr Karen Kingle, the top experts in viral myocarditis in the world. They warned us in January about a pandemic coming and the need for rapid/high volume COVID19 testing, which is the reason we have access to the only Panther Fusion technology in the State of Florida.
Drive Thru testing:
Under the leadership of Katherine Panesso, Maria Quiles, Jennifer Gonzalez, Millie Fennema and Abraham Valdes who put this together in less than a week and worked nonstop, including weekends to make it a success. So far 4,549 people have been tested with 565 positives.
Call Center and Patient Portal:
Under the leadership of Sandy Sosa, Thomas Michel and Hernan Zornada (who have worked non stop on this, sleeping 2 hours a day) we have developed a unique patient portal that allows for seamless registration online, payment and appointment scheduling using texting and email to notify of appointments/test results. The average wait time is 15 minutes and we are now testing 250 per day and expect to ramp up significantly over the next couple of weeks. We even registered a cool domain to schedule drive thru testing www.coronavirustest.com
We developed dozens of educational videos to inform the public about how to protect themselves and their loved ones. This is the link to the videos, under the playlist COVID19. https://www.youtube.com/user/LARKINHOSPITAL.
Peer Support Group:
We have a group of residents and attendings, under the leadership of Dr Wendy Oliver-Pyatt reaching out to the 565 positives and offering free peer support and help with running errands, food purchases, etc… to help them maintain their quarantine and avoid infecting others.
Convalescent Plasma donations group:
We have assembled a group of residents and fellows under the leadership of Dr. Patrick Dreyer – Hematology Oncology Fellows; Dr. Vanessa Samaniego- Family Medicine Resident; Dr. Monica Multani- Gastroenterology Fellow; Dr. Freud Telemaque Internal Medicine Resident; Dr Andrea Miller- Allergy & Immunology Fellow, and their leader Dr Wendy Oliver-Pyatt, who are approaching the 565 positives about plasma donations. Each plasma donation can help up to 3 people in critical condition. We already have 4 people ready to donate on Friday and many more coming. If you are interested in making a Plasma Donation please email Larkincovid19@gmail.com.
Coronavirus Fighter App Development Group:
We have a group of volunteers, under the leadership of Camilo Hernandez, Dr Gene Schwartz, Dr Monica Multani, Orlando Suarez, Matteo Wise, Thomas Michel and Hernan Zornada, who are putting together a free App (using some of the functionalities of the App developed by the Government of South Korea) that will allow GPS tracking of positive patients, alerts, provide them with educational information, access to peer support, symptom reporting twice daily (with ability to deploy 911 for shortness of breath symptoms), a blog to communicate and support each other and ability to donate convalescent plasma. This App will be free to the public and be available in English and Spanish to anyone, anywhere in the world and they can connect with local health providers using it. This will be the new Facebook of Coronavirus.
Charite Hospital Consulting Team:
We have a team of physicians coming from Germany, led by Dr Carsten Tschope who will be here in the next 2 weeks to set up ECMO/Circulatory support program for our hospitals and bring the latest technologies in the treatment of acutely ill COVID19 patients, bringing their wealth of experience to help us save lives. We believe they will be able to improve our outcome experience significantly. They will also be available to consult via videoconference for any other hospital that requests them.
Sincerely,
Jack J Michel MD
Larkin Health System
www.larkinhospital.com
