San Francisco Sun

The success of the closely coordinated response by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and local health care systems during the COVID-19 pandemic was detailed in an article published in NEJM Catalyst this week.

This cross-institutional coordination, conceived early in the pandemic, is credited alongside community-led efforts for San Francisco achieving one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates and among the highest vaccination rates in the state and country.

Medical and public health experts from all major San Francisco health systems, including SFDPH, UCSF, Kaiser Permanente, Chinese Hospital, and Sutter Health, co-authored the article titled "The San Francisco Health Systems Collaborative: Public Health and Health Care Delivery Systems’ Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic." The article details how these partners convened to align medical surge planning and response to better manage the pandemic and mitigate health disparities in resource allocation and access to care.

Dr. Mary Mercer, Chief of Staff of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG), said these organizations found common ground for the greater good. "The threat to public health created by the COVID-19 pandemic prompted those organizations that are traditional competitors in the marketplace to work together to meet the system-wide health needs of the public. We shared information and pooled resources which provided broad community access in ways not seen before.”

Dubbed the San Francisco Health System Collaborative, this model guided local medical and public health responses in areas such as medical surge, vaccination administration, testing, and therapeutics. High-level priorities included protecting those most at risk of infection, protecting healthcare workers, and maintaining health system capacity.

Dr. Susan Philip, Health Officer for San Francisco, stated that this unique partnership relied on shared priorities, accountability, transparency, as well as operational coordination—a model that continued past the peak of the pandemic. “Using this collaboration," she said," we were able to identify surge bed capacity for use system-wide and ensure equitable vaccine distribution at our five mass vaccination sites. We continued to work together on both boosters and therapeutics."

Director of Health Dr. Grant Colfax noted that beyond COVID-19 responses; this collaborative model was also utilized during San Francisco’s mpox response. “It’s a blueprint that we can utilize for major threats to public health," he said. "Residents of our City can feel secure knowing that both public and private health systems are willing to join forces to protect them.”

San Francisco has led nationally with high primary vaccination series completion rates and low death rates among larger metropolitan cities. This achievement was facilitated by robust vaccination and testing infrastructure established by SFDPH in partnership with community-based organizations and healthcare partners throughout the city.