Providence St. Joseph Health offers coronavirus lessons from treating 'patient one' in the U.S.

It was a Sunday in mid-January when Amy Compton Phillips, chief clinical officer for Providence St. Joseph Health, was first alerted that a patient with COVID-19 had shown up at one of the health system’s urgent care centers.

It wasn’t just the first case detected in the health system. It was the first case confirmed in the U.S.

“It probably wasn’t all that surprising, being that we’re on the West Coast, that we ended up with ‘patient one’ here in the U.S.,” Phillips said during a virtual conference call hosted by HIMSS Wednesday. From the very beginning, infectious disease physicians warned hospitals on the West Coast it was only a matter of time before the virus made it to their doorsteps, Phillips said.