Bob Wright re: Newman Regional Health Response
County EOC update:
- How long will social distancing continue as it is today, and when the time comes, how can it be phased out in a way that makes sense for the community and doesn’t risk an increase in transmission?
- Population density in Emporia is significantly higher than the average in Kansas
- Help the community understand that it may still be quite some time before we can gather in any significant number within our community
- Flint Hills Community Health Center got 120 test kits from state distribution
- Continue following state and CDC guidelines on testing prioritization due to shortage
# of inpatients currently in COVID unit – 3; none intubated
Cumulative # of COVID admissions – 8 (27% admission rate based on community positives)
Average length of stay for COVID patients – 14 days
Determination of discharge – medically stable to isolate at home and meet discharge criteria (7 days since the onset of symptoms OR fever free for 72 hours without fever-reducing medication along with significant improvement in symptoms– whichever is longer)
Respiratory Clinic #s – average of 7 daily (Monday-Friday)
Drive Thru #s – average of 5 daily (Monday-Friday)
Tests administered to date – 195 individuals tested within the NRH health system with 28 resulting positive and 13 pending; results in a 15% positive rate
May experience a full COVID-19 unit within the facility of end of this week and beginning of next which would be a total of 8 COVID-19 positive patients at any one given time.
Newman Regional Health Medical Partners
- Virtual visits – began April 13 through electronic health record system, Meditech; access through the patient portal; patients seen virtually that screen positive for COVID will be referred to the drive thru specimen collection for COVID-19 testing. Read more https://www.newmanrh.org/virtualvisits
- Well visits in AM (20% of volume); sick visits in the afternoon
- Increasing # of clinic providers
Outpatient appointments – recommended to come wearing a personal mask
Currently not feasible to use community donated cloth masks to provide to every patient coming in; will continue to mask patients with signs/symptoms and educate on the importance of social distancing within the facility and waiting rooms
Test delays = impact to # of Lyon Co. positive cases
- In-house BioFire panel that tests for respiratory diseases will not receive FDA approval prior to June
- Abbott point-of-care tests will not be coming to Kansas any time soon
- Fall of 2020 – Abbott will be releasing a serum test for antibodies
- Antibody stick tests – not specific to SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19); anyone with active antibodies for any type of coronavirus will test positive making it a difficult test to utilize for COVID-19 cases
- Currently nothing available to do SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) antibody testing
Patient/Visitor/Employee screening process
- Consistent screening questions for all
- Patient receives a pass upon completion of screening to help provide staff with necessary information as it relates to patient screening, mask, etc.
- If a patient screens positive when completing the verbal health screening, they will be provided with a mask to wear during the entirety of their stay
- Visitor receives a pass upon completion of screening with educational reminders – hand hygiene, limit interactions, visit restrictions
Personal Protective Equipment
- 5 days on hand of procedure masks (ear loop masks will be depleted by Saturday – move to tie masks)
- Current inventory of N95s = 1,800
- County stockpile – 5,000 procedure masks and 9,000 N95s
- Continuation of Powered Air Purifying Respirator use for PUI/+
- Masks and goggles used for all patient care encounters