A Letter from Dr. Boris Kuvshinoff

To Our Valued Colleagues,

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted every aspect of our daily lives – how we bring groceries into our homes, how we distance ourselves from others, and even how we interact with our patients.

We want you to know that we have made Roswell Park Comprehensive Center’s inpatient and outpatient areas as safe and secure as possible by taking every precaution necessary to protect your patients and our staff. We are working around the clock to make sure our frontline staff is equipped with personal protective equipment, such as masks, gowns and face shields. We are also now providing face masks to our patients, visitors and caregivers as an added layer of protection.

As the virus spread in our community, we took swift and early action:

• We limited the number of employees and visitors to the main campus, as well as our satellite centers.
• We restricted travel by our employees.
• Our environmental services team more aggressively disinfected all surfaces and we installed motion-activated door openers so no one has to touch door handles.
• We stopped valet services and transported patients from the parking ramp roof into the hospital.
• We sent staff home who were at high risk for COVID-19 because of symptoms, exposure or recent travel.
• We limited entry to our clinical buildings to just two entrances and began screening all patients, staff and visitors for symptoms and risk factors.

Because we put these processes in place immediately, we are fortunate to have only had a limited number of employees who have tested positive for COVID-19, and a small number of patients who were isolated from others in our inpatient hospital.

We also started offering virtual video visits with many of our patients who had scheduled appointments. We will continue doing these virtual appointments for a little while longer, but if you feel that your patient needs to be physically seen by one of our physicians, please call us. We are open and still providing necessary cancer care in our operating rooms, infusion clinics, and our radiation, ambulatory and Assessment and Treatment centers.

We strongly encourage you to refer patients you suspect have cancer. There is no need to postpone out of fear or concern regarding this pandemic. As a comprehensive cancer center, Roswell Park’s focus is treating cancer patients — we are not a general hospital that admits and treats non-cancer patients with COVID-19. This is very important to understand. Our facility continues to be a safe place for our patients. Our staff is highly trained at screening for and managing infectious disease. We are constantly monitoring the situation and community needs.

We are doing everything in our power to minimize any disruption to your patients’ cancer care at the main hospital and satellite centers. We will keep you updated as we make plans to safely return to normal operations. Until then, if you have issues or concerns about anything, please call me at 716-845-7724 or email me at boris.kuvshinoff@roswellpark.org.

Weekly Webinars

We are holding weekly updates for our patients on social media platforms on their frequently asked questions. We are also holding weekly updates every Thursday with our doctors for you, our community colleagues on the following topics:

• Collaborative Efforts in the Treatment of COVID-19
• COVID and Cancer: What Roswell Park is Doing to Ensure Patient Safety in Continued Treatment
• Medical Management Protocol for COVID-19 Patients
• Lung Health and the Cancer Patient
• When Is a Surgical Procedure Necessary?
• Is Your Patient Immunocompromised?

You will be receiving e-vites, or you can visit us at RoswellPark.org/RPMD where you can register for any one of these virtual discussions. Please don’t hesitate to call our Physician Liaison Associates at 716-845-3195, if you need guidance on a patient management situation or to learn about our current outreach efforts.

Stay safe and healthy,

Boris Kuvshinoff II, MD, MBA
Chief Medical Officer
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center