03/27/2020
Friday March 27th, 2020
Good afternoon everyone,
We’d like to start with how much we appreciate everyone’s efforts and cooperation during our transition to telehealth medicine during these trying times. It is our intention to remain operational during our normal business hours. We’d like to make an update to the information we sent out regarding how it all works.
In our previous email, we stated that patients must have a smart device with a camera and microphone to participate. Since many of our patients do not have these devices, we are now able to schedule a time to have a normal phone call with a provider instead. We do prefer being able to utilize both audio and video with the patient, but it’s not realistic in every situation. We will do what is necessary to provide everyone with care, including new patients that would like to schedule with us.
We’d also like to reinforce the importance of social distancing, which is maintaining 6 feet or more apart from other people. Mask and glove wearing, frequent hand washing and staying home are crucial to stopping the spread. There are now 3 cases of COVID-19 in the area, and Rockwall County is under a shelter-in-place order until mid-April. We are taking this very seriously and strongly encourage everyone to follow this protocol to their best ability. Even if a person is seemingly healthy (asymptomatic), any carelessness could likely spread the virus to someone who will have trouble surviving the infection. Taking these safety measures could save the lives of people you love and/or depend on every day.
We hope everyone is staying safe out there and look forward to continuing primary care to all our patients. We will keep everyone up to date in the following weeks to come.
Thank you,
Sparks Clinic Providers and Staff