How Families Can Navigate the High Respiratory Virus Season With KidMed (Video)

Aired December 16, 2022 on Virginia This Morning

Mark Flanzenbaum, M.D. met with Jessica Noll of Virginia This Morning on CBS 6 (WTVR) and discussed the 2022 fall and winter seasons and the high rate of upper respiratory viruses affecting kids and families, like flu and RSV. Dr. Flanzenbaum shares how KidMed, a pediatric urgent care, is helping the Richmond area and Stafford, Virginia communities and what you can expect when visiting an urgent care facility during this high respiratory virus season.

Watch the interview video below or read the transcript.

Video Transcript:

This segment is sponsored by KidMed Pediatric Urgent Care.

Jessica Noll:

The Doctor Is In, and you have questions. Respiratory illnesses are on the rise this season and are impacting children in high proportion. Today, Dr. Mark Flanzenbaum, co-founder and managing partner at KidMed, joins us lending his insight. It is wonderful to see you.

Dr. Mark Flanzenbaum:

Nice to see you, Jess.

Jessica Noll:

This is a really busy time of year anyway, but you’re finding this year widespread flu, RSV. This is really impacting young people and families.

Dr. Flanzenbaum:

Yeah, it’s been all over the news, but this has been just a very unpredictable flu and RSV season. We always see flu and RSV tend to peak late fall, early spring, but this year it started way earlier. And we’re still in the midst of it right now. We’re still seeing very high volumes of flu. We’re seeing moderate to high volumes of RSV. Luckily COVID has come down a little bit. But we still have all three of those going on simultaneously, and the pattern is so unpredictable. We don’t know at this point where it’s going to end. We always, you know, do our best to try to get as many patients in and seen during their time, but all of the clinics around the country are just overwhelmed with patients now because of this, and we’re just we’re hoping for the best.

Jessica Noll:

I’ve heard this, as a parent thinking, okay, well the you know my provider may be overwhelmed. How do you manage? It’s such a delicate dance and a really talented team at managing that volume to make sure that that care is accessible.

Dr. Flanzenbaum:

We’ve done sort of a three-pronged approach recently to help that along. One of them is we’ve encouraged patients and parents to go online through our website and to reserve a spot which allows them to have a dedicated time that they’re you know able to be seen. It’s not a reservation, but what it does is it keeps them from having to wait for hours and hours in the parking lot with an unknown number of patients waiting ahead of them, which was the old way of doing things. We still spend the time to educate our patients to spend the time making kids comfortable, you know. Part of what we want to do with every child when they’re there is is to make it a non-scary environment. We say we take the scary out of this for both the parents and the children. But one of the things we do right now is we allow for our providers to have a maximum number of patients per hour and that allows us to get as many kids in as we can. And then we also allow for urgent things to be seen even if parents don’t do a Save Your Spot. And those things where they can come in as a walk-in would be difficulty breathing, with severe and uncontrolled pain, persistent vomiting lacerations, potential broken bones, and severe allergic reactions. Those can come in as a walk-in.

Jessica Noll:

Mark, KidMed pediatric urgent care. I’m familiar because we’ve talked over the years. You’ve been in this community now with several locations for several years. But for anybody who’s maybe hearing about it for the first time, what is KidMed all about?

Dr. Flanzenbaum:

Well, you know we are a specialty pediatric practice and what makes us unique is that we do have the providers that have that pediatric expertise to be able to recognize the difference between how illnesses and injuries present in children versus adults. And that’s a huge difference, and being able to make that determination of what is truly an illness or an injury in a child that may look different than an adult allows us to make an appropriate diagnosis, allows us to avoid under-treating or over treating, which can happen in other facilities.

Jessica Noll:

Mark, thank you so much. And as we go through this flu and RSV season where everything is elevated, continuing through and connecting with each other, it’ll probably continue to expand. But it’s wonderful knowing that we have a resource in town. We’re going to share some information, so folks know how to get in touch. KidMed has several locations, as we mentioned, in our area in Mechanicsville, Short Pump, Midlothian, and Stafford. And for the information you can call the team. 804-422-5437 or visit the website kidmedva.com.

And stay with us. Virginia This Morning returns right after this.