Ten tips for improving your clinical practice during the COVID-19 pandemic

This review provides ten tips for improving clinical practice during COVID-19 as pandemic fatigue begins to complicate personal and professional lives of clinicians.

COVID-19 has created unique and unexpected challenges to healthcare delivery, but has also provided opportunities for re-evaluation of practice patterns to optimize high-value practices. With ongoing uncertainty, key factors to appreciate for patient and population health include the continued touchstones of empathy and compassion, the use of effective risk communication with shared clinical decision-making when appropriate, attention to resource stewardship and vulnerable populations, importance of health literacy and need for critical assessment of media and medical literature to mitigate misinformation, and the hidden costs of the pandemic on children. Although there has been some international concern for allergic reactions to the recently approved Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, neither the United States Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorizations exclude patients without a specific allergy to a vaccine component from receiving vaccination.

Practical adjustments to practice during COVID-19 are feasible and acceptable. Experience during COVID-19 reinforces the critical need for human connection while providing care and service in every encounter.