Our Main Announcement

Coronavirus update from Legacy Pediatrics

by Dr. Janet Casey

Family Talk

We know you are inundated with news and information about Coronavirus, but we felt it important to let you know some basic information and how Legacy Pediatrics is going to approach patient care during this time.

First, some information about the symptoms of COVID-19 to help you possibly recognize it if you or a family member becomes ill with the virus. Following exposure, symptom onset is between 2-9 days with a median of 5 days. The virus is spread through droplets expelled from coughing and sneezing. Unlike influenza’s sudden onset of symptoms, infection with COVID-19 starts a bit slower with some body aches, decreased energy, low grade fever and cough. There is minimal if any runny nose or congestion and about 80% of people have only these symptoms and the infection resolves in 14 days. Progression to more severe symptoms occurs in the second week of illness. It is an average of 8 days to the development of shortness of breath and on average 9 days to pneumonia.

As you may have heard, children are faring well with this illness with most children having mild symptoms and very few children progressing to more severe illness. There are a number of theories as to why this is occurring but nothing definite has been established. The elderly and those with chronic cardiac or respiratory problems are at greatest risk for developing severe illness and requiring medical attention and admission to the hospital.

The most effective way to avoid infection is to wash your hands often with anti-bacterial soap for at least 20 seconds and to not touch your face. Use good cough/sneeze techniques by coughing into your elbow and using tissues to cover your face with sneezing. If your child or you are feeling ill, stay home until your symptoms resolve.

Legacy Pediatrics will be following the CDC’s guidelines for the identification and care of patients with suspected or confirmed infection with COVID-19. If you have questions please visit the CDC’s website at www.cdc.gov for the most up to date information on COVID-19. The CDC is recommending that patients with possible symptoms and an exposure history to an area with widespread infections to stay home and call your health care provider. Do not go to the ER or the office!

Our specific protocol for handling possible infections in our patients:

  1. If you suspect infection with COVID-19 and your child has the above symptoms, please call the office. DO NOT come to walk-ins and DO NOT make an appointment. We will set up a telemedicine visit for that day to assess your child’s symptoms and determine appropriate level of care.
  • If you do come to the office, we ask that you return to your car and call the office so that we can determine the best course of action.
  • All testing for COVID-19 is being done through the Monroe County Health Department. Legacy Pediatrics will not have the ability to test for the infection.

Legacy Pediatrics’ goal during this time is to keep our patients, their families, and our staff safe, and to avoid exposures. We have a very limited number of surgical masks and will not be able to mask a potentially infected person before they enter our office so it is imperative that the needed visits occur via telemedicine visits.

We will update this information as this situation changes. Thank you so much for your teamwork as we move through this difficult and challenging time.

It’s flu shot time!

Fight the Flu

The CDC recommends ALL people ages 6 months and older get the flu shot every season. The flu shot not only protects you and your family but the weakest in our community (babies, elderly, sickly). So do your part! NYS only had a 40% vaccination rate last year, and the goal is 70% to significantly reduce flu hospitalizations and deaths during the season.

Call our office to set up an appointment (585-568-8330) for your child/children and we can vaccinate parents as well! We will have some evening flu clinics as listed below, but also can vaccinate during our normal business hours. These are not walk in appointments, so please call for the date and time you would like so we can keep things running smoothly.

We are hosting evening flu clinics on:
-Monday, 10/7
-Tuesday, 10/8
-Tuesday, 10/15
-Monday, 10/21
-Thursday 10/24

We are also trying to get kids in to get flu shots during their October school break – Friday 10/11 and Columbus Day, Monday 10/14 during normal business hours.

Thank you all!!

What’s New at Legacy Pediatrics in 2019?

Happy New Year to everyone from Legacy Pediatrics! We hope you all had a fun and restful holiday season. I wanted to update our families on some new things going on with us at Legacy Pediatrics in 2019.

One of the first things you will notice is our new logo! We are excited about our new branding! We used a local graphic designer (and mom) to help us get a better match for what we represent here at Legacy.

If you’ve been to the office lately, you may have noticed our brand-new floors and fresh paint on the walls! The winter salt and wet boots took a toll on our old floors and the new ones will hopefully wear better and with a new, modern look.

In terms of Legacy’s services, we are continuing our work in the important area of pediatric research. In fact we are currently enrolling 2 month-old children for a meningitis vaccine study and will soon start up a study evaluating a new rapid influenza test.

New in 2019 are updates to New York State daycare and school forms. We are formatting these into our EMR system and can print at your child’s physical. These forms will also be available to you on our Patient Portal (via our website) so you can download and print at your leisure.

Speaking of physicals, Legacy has started calling families when a child’s birthday is coming up to remind you to schedule your child’s physical. Everyone is programmed to get their infant, toddler and young child in for their physicals so that we can monitor development, answer questions and administer vaccinations. But once your child reaches school age, sometimes we forget! It remains very important that your child get a yearly physical around the time of their birthday. These appointments allow us to be able to check in with your child to monitor their school progress, emotional and physical health and administer vaccinations. There are a number of vaccinations that are tied to a specific age, so it continues to be important to schedule your child’s physical around the time of their birthday.

There is some confusion about the timing of physicals for pre-teens and teens who participate in school sports. Parents are occasionally told from schools to schedule the physical in July or August in order for their child to be able to participate in school sports. That is simply not true! The yearly physical is “good” for an entire year from the end of the month of the physical. For example, if your child is born in February, a physical done in February 2019 is “good” until the end of February 2020. Your child is eligible to participate in school sports for the Spring sports season that school year and the Fall and Winter sports in the following school year using that physical form. It’s also unrealistic for us to be able to do all school aged children’s physicals in just two months! Hence, our push to try to match up physicals with birthday month.

You will also find some interesting and pertinent articles given out at childhood physicals. Parenting is hard, so if we find some helpful information, we like to pass it along to you.

The last comment about physicals is that nearly all insurance companies cover one physical a calendar year for children, pre-teens and teens older than 14. We want to be the best “medical home” for your child and their needs and love to see them grow! Summers are our most popular time for physicals to be booked and therefore, can be busy and openings are less. We ask that you call and book your appointments a few months in advance, so we can accommodate everyone’s needs!

 

Holiday Charity Raffle

JLR Diaper Bank

We are back at it again this year with our Holiday charity raffle, partnering with the local charity, Junior League of Rochester Diaper Bank, to help bring diapers to low-income families who can’t afford diapers. We will be collecting diapers in a large bin in our waiting room for people to come and donate diapers (any type – disposable, cloth, opened packs, leftovers), diaper cream, wipes, any type of diaper related item. People who donate will get a raffle ticket which will enter you into one of our raffle drawings.

Raffles prizes include 4 Knighthawk tickets, 2 Bills tickets to the Detroit Lions vs Buffalo home game (12/16), restaurant gift cards (NoshEdiblesBernard’s Grove) Wegmans gift cards, and more!  We have more potential “surprise” prizes that may pop up during the month of December, so stay tuned!!  We will raffle them off in December and announce them on our Facebook page and also contact the winners.  Help us wrap up little babies bottoms this holiday season and win some awesome prizes!!

Rochester Diaper Needs 

Diaper Bank Flyer