Maintaining Balance: Sustaining AD Programming During COVID-19

Bevin K. Shagoury, Communications & Education Director
A Letter from Our Team

Tags: COVID-19, ​E-Detailing

To our AD Community:

By the time you read this, certain adjectives will have moved to the top of your frequently-used list. Words like “unprecedented”, “strange”, and “unsettling” are just a few that our home team has been using most commonly, and we’re sure that you, our community of AD peers, have been, too.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, priorities are changing quickly and frequently—many of our public health colleagues have found themselves focused primarily, if not entirely, on the situation at hand, with critical response demands shape-shifting hourly.

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​For those of us who spend our time more removed from frontline healthcare and have been focused on clinical outreach education or adjacent health improvement initiatives, challenging questions have arisen.
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• How do I sustain focus on the priority of improving outcomes for patients during other critical health concerns, like the opioid crisis or in HIV prevention, that need to take the ‘back burner’ to the global pandemic?
• How can I visit with clinicians during a time when non-critical face-to-face interaction is on hold?
• How can we stay on track with meeting project goals for grantors who want to see progress on deliverables we can’t carry out in person for the foreseeable future?
• How can we maintain a sense of momentum in the important work that we do while taking care of ourselves and our families?

​The answers to these and other questions are context-dependent, ever-changing, and don’t always have easy solutions. There are changes and disappointments to adapt to—for us, we’ve accepted the need to prioritize safety and postpone our March and June 2020 trainings (keep your eye on our Training Series page for reschedule dates), and we appreciate your patience as we wait to figure out next steps.

But we’re equally aware that there are just as many opportunities for growth. At NaRCAD, our goal right now is to support our colleagues as we all face the very real impacts of COVID-19. Concretely, we’re working hard to bridge some of the gaps that make the original, face-to-face model of AD temporarily impossible. We’re proud to share that we just launched our first e-Detailing Community of Practice, e-Detailing Toolkit, and are shifting focus on our 2020 Webinar Series this month to tend to the needs of those programs who must pivot to e-detailing and quickly.

​As such, we encourage you to complete our 1-minute e-Detailing Needs Assessment survey, so we can design tools and resources that fit your needs. Based on your responses, we’ll translate your needs into tailored support to help you realistically maintain the work that you can, rebalance your priorities, and focus on future programming efforts during a time when the present is hard to navigate.

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As we all try to take the current realities of our world one day at time, NaRCAD is dedicated to finding creative solutions for you all to continue supporting clinicians as best you can in making the kinds of decisions that will have a long-term impact on the health of their patients. We’re dedicated to growing with you as you inform how we grow and change our team’s priorities to match yours.

​Join us in our Community of Practice, send us an e-mail, or better yet—take a deep breath. As you all try to face the daily challenges that arise during a time unlike any other, know that our team is here when you need us, as your colleagues, and as community members who care.
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In support,
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The Team @ NaRCAD

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