Ballad Health tapping into surge plan as COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to increase
A surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations across Ballad Health facilities has prompted the healthcare system to take action to increase bed capacity.
Officials announced Wednesday that there were 70 hospitalizations within Ballad and another 30 hospitalized awaiting COVID-19 test results. Eric Deaton, Ballad Health Chief Operating Officer, said the system is making several temporary relocation moves of staff from smaller hospitals to the larger hospitals as well some operational changes to deal with the hospitalization surge and to increase COVID-19 bed capacity to 150, which should be complete by Friday.
Some of these changes can be found below:
•Hancock County Hospital and Hawkins County Memorial Hospital have some staff that are relocating to Kingsport’s Holston Valley Medical Center. Also putting a temporary pause on new admissions and surgical procedures.
•Preparation is ready for temporary relocation of some in-patient providers from Unicoi County Hospital to Sycamore Shoals Hospital and Johnson City Medical Center.
•Franklin Woods Community Hospital and Greeneville Hospital East will temporarily reduce capacity in ICU and will relocate some staff to Johnson City Medical Center.
•Russell County, VA and Smyth County, VA hospitals will temporarily discontinue admissions in the ICU and will put a cap on the number of in-patients in both facilities. Some staff will be transferred to Johnston Memorial Hospital and Bristol Regional Medical Center.
Deaton says they are developing additional surge plans should they have to increase capacity to 200 and beyond.
Ballad’s predictive model of low to severe COVID-19 spread has current projections on line with the severe spread projection. The predictive model shows a continuous, sharp increase in cases through the next two months, which could overwhelm the system if capacity were to reach 300 and above.
While Deaton was showing the updated model during the press conference, he said, “Through the middle of July, we are on the upper trajectory to have some very high numbers of patients. The model maxes out at around 350 patients in-house, so it’s very disturbing as you look at that trajectory that we are on right now.”
Deaton also explained the “patient under investigation” term used in Ballad’s model, which represents a person hospitalized with symptoms of COVID-19 awaiting results of a coronavirus test. Those tests are conducted by Ballad using the system’s rapid-testing capabilities.
“We have two different methods to do in-house testing, one involves a large batch type testing that we do in about a 24-hour cycle, which takes about a day to get back. The other method is quicker, but we have limited supplies on the other method. The quicker method is primarily being used for people needing surgery or hospitalized in the emergency department, but we plan to shift to using the first type of testing on patients needing surgery in the future,” said Deaton.
Ballad continues to stress the importance of preventing the spread of COVID-19 through actions like wearing a face covering (now required in public places through Northeast TN/Southwest VA) social distancing, and hand washing.
Photo Courtesy: Ballad Health Press Conference via Facebook and Ballad Health
