Bob Wright, CEO
Staying stable with admission/inpatient rate
It appears as though our Lyon County positive cases are trending up, but it’s a combination of increasing our test capabilities and doing them in an environment where we know there’s an increased positive rate
Stormont has 4 COVID-19 inpatients
County EOC update
• More National Guard deployed in Lyon County to do contact tracing for positive cases
• Testing showed a decrease on April 27 compared to week prior
• Use of local hotels is an important step, especially for households that have a larger number of members living under the same roof
COVID Volumes
• # of inpatients currently in COVID unit – 3 with 1 PUI (persons under investigation)
• Cumulative # of COVID admissions – 18
• Respiratory Clinic # – 6 patients seen April 27
• Drive Thru # – 16 on April 27 compared to an average of 30/day last week
Lyon County positive rate is increasing, but hospitalizations are staying stable. What is this attributable to?
• Quite possible the spread we are seeing came from Colorado (West Coast) which originated in Europe which is a different strain they are seeing on the East Coast from Italy (it’s been said the East Coast strain is stronger)
Test supplies
• As of April 27 – 547 tests available for specimen collection
• Quest will accept nasal swabs as opposed to the longer swabs which increases our testing supply
• Swabs from flu kits can also be utilized
• Swabs from 3D printer at ESU will not be able to be utilized
PPE update
• Less than a 15-day supply of procedure masks currently on hand
• N95 masks were deployed approximately a week ago to staff which is currently being stored individually within each department
• N95 mask covers that the community has made and donated allows the N95 mask itself to be utilized for 5 shifts
• Patients are highly encouraged to come to their appointments wearing their own personal face mask. If they do not have one, it will be provided to them upon entering the hospital/clinic space.
Re-establishment of services
• Still some time out from introducing elective inpatient procedures, like total joints, and procedures that require blood use as there is a current blood shortage (may be re-evaluated late June or early July)
• Dependent on state orders, OrthoKansas will be coming back onsite during the week of May 4 to see patients in the clinic and provide an opportunity to schedule patients for procedures with at least a 6 week window to reach that late June/early July timeframe for major procedures
• Outpatient primary care clinics – well visits in the morning; sick visits in the afternoon with clinic appointment numbers increasing
• Due to critical shortage of PPE, the re-establishment of services like procedures is postponed
• When PPE shortages are no longer an issue, elective procedures and surgeries will begin increasing
Hospital volumes
• Inpatient volumes have stayed consistent at an average of 22-23 daily census
• Recently, our inpatient rehabilitation volumes have increased
• Elective inpatient procedures and outpatient elective diagnostics – down 40% in April; down 20% in March
Cash position
• As financial recovery bills have gone through Congress, county Critical Access Hospitals were not eligible for the initial round of Small Business loans
Thank you to all of the community members that have donated their time and hardworking efforts to supply cloth masks for the Newman Regional Health community!