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Dr. Betsy Koickel led 14 Northwell Health-GoHealth Urgent Care locations across New York’s Suffolk County through the pandemic. Her focus on provider and patient safety coupled with her empathetic leadership style allowed her to successfully navigate the crisis and offer excellent patient care.
Dr. Koickel protected over 100 providers and staff from COVID-19 while maintaining patients’ access to care. Early in the pandemic, the constantly evolving nature of the virus required continuous education. Dr. Koickel implemented best practices to keep her teams safe while providing the best care for patients, including disinfection policies, PPE procedures and telephone triage workflows.
The pandemic proved especially challenging for women in Dr. Koickel’s workforce. Several were pregnant. Many were the primary caretakers in their families. And they had to balance eight- to 12-hour shifts with school closures, remote learning, sick family members and finding childcare and senior care. Dr. Koickel supported them by offering virtual visit roles and shortening and spacing out shifts to limit burnout.
Dr. Koickel’s centers saw many frontline workers who couldn’t work from home. They needed to be seen quickly, given the right COVID test and cleared to return to work. Dr. Koickel and her teams streamlined their triage process to care for more patients by offering in-person and virtual appointments.
Dr. Koickel is an empathetic leader who uplifts and strengthens her teams and patients. She follows the motto “a happy employee is a more productive and successful employee” and accommodates work/life balance to improve the morale and mental health of her workforce. She checks in with employees facing challenges, such as a mother of two who was devastated to miss her daughter’s birthday party after testing positive for COVID-19.
A woman of color and child of immigrants, Dr. Koickel has opportunities unlike her ancestors, such as the autonomy to educate and make decisions for herself. Following the examples of the strong women in her family, she looks forward to encouraging female clinical leaders and improving the diversity of her leadership teams through her new role as Medical Director of Memorial Hermann-GoHealth Urgent Care in Houston.
Nomination Title: How Dr. Betsy Koickel
