The NYC COVID Rapid Response Coalition: A Retrospective

Written by Colleen Cozzens, Director at Oxeon Partners

Anyone who works in the healthcare industry knows the strength of the industry is measured by its people - those that dedicate their lives to go above and beyond whether in direct care delivery, or to improve the systems and processes by which Americans receive, pay, and navigate their care. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we, as so many others, were worried about the future. Through anxious conversations with clients and other friends of the firm, we realized that Oxeon was uniquely positioned to bring major players from the New York City healthcare infrastructure to the table to figure out how to better work together to address this problem, which was full of unknowns. Oxeon, however, ended up being only a very small part of what ended up as a miraculous display of the true heart and soul of the NYC healthcare community.

Through word of mouth, our network of clients, candidates, portfolio companies, and friends of the firm, we assembled a group of leaders from healthcare technology, payers, providers, and social services within the city. The initial focus of the coalition was on two populations: vulnerable individuals yet to be diagnosed with COVID-19, for whom the focus was how to educate and support them in their homes to prevent contracting the virus; and vulnerable populations with existing conditions who, due to constraints and constriction of the healthcare system, would see their conditions deteriorate to the point of requiring ICU/ER utilization. We set up tri-weekly calls, which, beyond serving as a place to convene as a group, ended up as a forum to share ideas, lean on each other, and help make sense of the new normal our community was facing.

We were blown away by the response - the way our community came together to unite for a common cause was fast and without hesitation. Many people I’ve spoken with since have reminisced with us about the significance of those calls - how the sheer presence of our community showing up for each other - providing leads on PPE, stepping up to volunteer their time to connect vulnerable populations to critical resources - was a much needed beacon of hope and a meaningful place to find community during an extremely difficult time for us all.

The impact of the members of the coalition has been staggering - coalition members sourced labor solutions for hospitals, such as engineering and trade expertise to help hospitals handle pressurized gas distribution to increase ICU bed capacity, secured philanthropic donations of COVID testing, and sourced free mental health support for frontline health workers. Volunteers built an international supply chain of PPE that procured over 8 metric tons of philanthropically-donated PPE, valued at approximately $1 million, and delivered more than 60k surgical masks, 27k KN-95 masks, and 10k face shields to front-line community organizations. The coalition also facilitated distribution of 5,500 donated test kits to front-line community-based organizations on Staten Island, Queens, Long Island, Brooklyn, and worked with 75+ organizations to develop an end-to-end supply chain and “last mile” meal delivery capability - delivering over 194k meals to more than 50 residences in the hardest hit areas of the city.

The Coalition, in partnership with the many NYC-based hospital systems that were members, also identified a need to engage with and quickly address the needs of high risk, chronically ill, and underserved New Yorkers in need of at-home care and services. Teams from AIRnyc, Manatt, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Bain & Company worked on a pro-bono basis to design, deploy, and refine the engagement process, standing up an SMS outreach mechanism that reached up to 10,000 members a day, connecting them to critical resources such as emotional support, access to medical advice, pharmacy refills, and assistance dealing with challenges such as accessing food and unemployment support. The AWS team built a chatbot solution that guided individuals through various prompts for support that could then be deployed at similar organizations - for guidance on how to deploy this solution free of charge, please see the AWS blog post on their work with the coalition here.

The work of the coalition will now have a permanent home within Public Health Solutions (PHS), a long standing community organization focused on supporting vulnerable New York City families in achieving optimal health and building pathways to reach their potential. PHS’s deep experience in health equity work and working with vulnerable populations in New York City makes them uniquely situated to carry on this work sustainably as the pandemic continues on.

There has been no greater display of the amazing resilience of this city than during the COVID-19 pandemic, and while we always knew the healthcare community is made up of amazing people, nothing showed the true heart of this community quite like this crisis. While the coalition was formed to address a very acute, very specific need, the fact remains that access to healthcare services remains a luxury within this city and country. There is much work to be done in improving health equity in this city, and while it feels at times that we are better equipped to deal with what’s to come, it is critical that we continue to support community-based organizations uniquely positioned to have the greatest impact on our community such as PHS.