Now more than ever, culture is the driving force of an organization’s ability to successfully adapt to the ever-changing challenges set before us by the COVID pandemic. In the setting of a crisis, it can be helpful for any organization to refer back to its core values and mission for guidance. SkinCare Physicians’ cultural framework was naturally designed by our everyday collective purpose: caring for each other and our patients. In a very unsettling and unprecedented manner, almost everything in this everyday practice changed on Monday, March 16th, 2020, when Massachusetts Governor, Charlie Baker, declared the State of Emergency. The only thing that did not change? The people. The kind, dedicated and hardworking people who promote SkinCare Physicians’ values.
Over time, SkinCare Physicians framed our culture of caring by deliberately designing and developing behavioral standards, customer service concepts, and hiring and training programs consistent with our core values. Our service design has been codified as the CARES program, an acronym that highlights the five quality standards that define our delivery of care to our patients.
C – Confidence 
A – Accuracy
R – Respect
E – Empathy
S – Safety
These CARES standards are applied at every patient and employee touchpoint at SkinCare Physicians, and they are guiding our response to this pandemic. We have been inspired by the confidence in decision-making displayed by our staff, and by their commitment to accuracy in patient care, even as we work remotely on new processes and policies. Patients and staff alike are working in a new environment and facing new ways of interacting with each other. Our staff’s careful attention to respect and empathy toward one another and our patients is the sole determinant of our success. Our newly-launched telemedicine platform would have not gotten off the ground had our staff not been able to patiently guide our patients (and the physicians!) through the process. And finally, ensuring the safety of our patients has retained singular importance in this crisis, as our team has displayed enthusiastic determination to keeping patients safe both in the office and out.
These CARES values have, for years, created a positive working environment at SkinCare Physicians, where people feel connected and are recognized as being an important part of something unique. But at no time have these values come more sharply into display than in these last few weeks during this COVID-19 pandemic. One might think that there are few things to be grateful for in the current setting, but this extraordinary demonstration of our staff’s resilience and ability to work beyond expectation is one. SkinCare Physicians CARES.
Co-author: Maureen Teahan
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