Fairbanks Memorial Hospital is preparing for a surge of COVID-19 cases in the Interior and is encouraging the community to play its part in slowing the spread of the disease. Medical officers met on Saturday for a planning session and spoke to local reporters about the strengths of their planning and the weaknesses of the testing for epidemic.
“We have been preparing for a while, because we are the healthcare system for Fairbanks, and we take it very seriously.”
Dr. Angelique Ramirez, the hospital’s Quality Medical Director, said even as the hospital is preparing, the larger part of slowing this contagious disease rests with the community. She said the preventative measures of handwashing, social-distancing, and staying at home if you are sick or exposed are critical to managing the epidemic.
“This is a disease that we have no vaccine for. It’s new so there is no immunity currently existing. We have no treatment for it. What we do is supportive care, so we want as many people to stay well as possible as long as possible.”
Ramirez showed the curve of expected cases – an image that is familiar to many people now – and repeated the philosophy about flattening that curve to keep the number of active cases in the realm that the health system can handle.
The hospital has been running drills and has training throughout the year. The planning session on Saturday was to prepare for a surge in COVID-19.
“Working together to develop surge planning capabilities as to how we can handle a larger group of patients at the same time.”
The day before, FMH staff had a table-top exercise that included the Army’s Basset Hospital at Fort Wainwright and medical officers at Eielson Air Force Base. Chief Operating Officer Clint Brooks says those medical partnerships are long established.
“Lots of planning and conversation about what their capabilities are, what they’re doing currently protecting their soldiers and airmen, and how we can partner if we have to deal with a large number of patients.”
The hospital is now open only people who have medical needs. And they ask that people who are feeling sick call ahead to medical providers before they come in. All hospital’s exterior doors are locked and all foot traffic is now routed through the main door, where visitors type in their names, and employees are required to show badges.
Several times during Saturday’s press conference, officers said they were adapting to rapidly changing protocols and confirmed information.
Shelley Ebenal, CEO of Foundation Health Partners says the hospital will incur costs it might not recover.
“This is ever-changing. And it will be costly. We are going to bit hit on the revue side. For example, we will probably be cancelling some elective surgeries to keep people out of the hospital, and safe. But in the meantime, we do suspect that even if we flatten the curve, there will be a curve, and the community comes first and we will deal with the costs later.”
Testing is a story all its own.
Dr. Ramirez says the hospital and other providers are following the CDC’s guidelines for testing, which are also posted on the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services website. But they can only use certified COVID-19 test kits – technicians can’t just grab materials off the shelf for this Polymerase Chain Reaction, or PCR test, that is similar to a DNA test.
“What’s involved for us is we have we have to have viral culture media on site to collect the specimens, then we have to get it to a lab that is able to test it using the PCR-type testing.”
And just up the hill is such a lab – the Alaska State Virology Laboratory is in Fairbanks and is able to turn tests around within a day. But with a limited number of kits, doctors will not be testing everyone who wants one.
“Anyone who is high risk, for example, a hospitalized patient, a symptomatic patient, a health care worker, will be tested locally.”
Lower-risk patients with milder symptoms will have their tests sent to commercial labs with a slower turn-around.
And then there are folks who won’t get tested. For example, if you have fever and cough but your doctor figures it is some other respiratory tract infection or a cold virus or influenza, all of which are in Alaska now, you will not be tested for COVID-19.
Ramirez said a test won’t affect treatment.
“The test is not gonna change what I do for anyone who is ill. Because we don’t have a specific vaccine, we don’t have a specific treatment, If you are ill, and it’s mild, we are going to ask you to stay home and not infect anybody else.”
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