OAHHS Hospital Voice Fall/Winter 2020

14 » A magazine for and about Oregon Community Hospitals. FOR THE GREATER GOOD: HOSPITALS ANSWER THE CALL We will protect our patients and staff at all costs By Dave Northfield When the reality of the virus hit, hospitals quickly saw that it would take a true community effort to first control and eventually defeat COVID-19. Oregon’s hospitals snapped into action, ready to do their part. Hospitals made sure staff and facili- ties were ready to receive COVID-19 patients. Surge plans, already in place at each facility, were on standby to activate if needed. In early March, facing a possible hospital bed shortage and the reality of a breakdown in the national PPE supply chain, it became clear that a pause on elective procedures made sense. Beds would be needed for the critically ill if some of the most severe scenarios came true, and scarce PPE was needed for frontline caregivers and expanded testing. Hospitals embraced these moves, including the pause in scheduled care. We are all in this together. “We pushed as much as we could to have the stay in place order,” said Charlie Tveit, CEO of Lake District Hospital. “It was vital to slow the surge.” All of Oregon’s 62 community hospi- tals instituted the recommended changes and adjusted intake and other triage procedures at their facilities. “We will protect our patients and our staff at all costs,” said Ginny Williams, CEO of Curry General Hospital. Prescreening, both prior to arrival and again at check-in, is now the norm. Personal protective equipment is being safely conserved and preserved when appropriate. Tveit and Oregon’s other hospital leaders knew these moves were necessary, but they also knew their operating revenue would be hit hard. They were right. Through the month of April, when Lake District had just a handful of patients but had yet to see