How prepared are Indian River County hospitals for the threat of Ebola? According to both Indian River Medical Center and Sebastian River Medical Center, the answer to that question is reassuring.
Citing all the national and international media attention given to Ebola in the past few weeks, Dr. Charles Mackett, the senior vice president and chief medical officer at IRMC says that while he “understands there are concerns from the community,” he is confident that the hospital “has procedures in place to identify any potential cases and to provide the utmost care and medical treatment.”
Those procedures, according to Mackett, include incorporating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations for patient evaluation guidelines into the hospital’s patient assessment process. He says, in addition, IRMC has the ability to isolate any suspected case.
Angela Dickens, spokesperson for the Sebastian River Medical Center, echoes Mackett’s claims as well as the official stance of the CDC, saying that although the risk of Ebola being found in a patient here is very low, SRMC is “prepared to follow infection control protocols established by the CDC beginning with placing the patient in isolation,” while adding that “medical personnel who enter the room would be protected with gowns, masks, face shields and gloves and nonessential staff and visitors would be restricted from entering.
The suspected case would be reported to local and state health departments and the CDC and we would continue to follow their guidance.”
Following all the recently issued CDC Ebola guidelines is no mean feat. The CDC has already listed at least 48 separate items on its “Detailed Hospital Checklist for Ebola Preparedness.” Among the items on that list are:
• Review risks and signs and symptoms of Ebola, and train all front-line clinical staff on how to identify signs and symptoms of Ebola.
• Review CDC Ebola case definition for guidance on who meets the criteria for a person under investigation for Ebola and proper specimen collection and shipment guidelines for testing.
• Ensure EMS Crews at hospitals and other agencies are aware of current guidance.
• Review Emergency Department (ED) triage procedures, including patient placement, and develop or adopt screening criteria (e.g. relevant questions: exposure to case, travel within 21 days from affected West African country) for use by healthcare personnel in the ED to ask patients during the triage process for patients arriving with compatible illnesses.
• Post screening criteria in conspicuous placements at ED triage stations, clinics, and other acute care locations.
• Designate points of contact within your hospital responsible for communicating with state and local public health officials.
• Ensure that all triage staff, nursing leadership, and clinical leaders are familiar with the protocols and procedures for notifying the designated points of contacts to inform the hospital leadership as well as state and local public health authorities regarding a person under investigation (PUI).
• Conduct spot checks and inspections of triage staff to determine if they are incorporating screening procedures and are able to initiate notification, isolation, and PPE procedures for your hospital.
• Ensure an adequate supply, for all healthcare personnel, of: Impermeable gowns, gloves; shoe covers, boots and booties, as well as eye protection, face masks and respirators.
Still, even if all guidelines are followed, errors can happen. In Dallas, the first person ever diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, a citizen of Liberia, died of the disease last Wednesday.
Then last weekend, a nurse who had treated the Ebola-stricken patient in Dallas was diagnosed with the virus, leaving puzzled public health officials scrambling to figure out whether other health-care workers may have had similar exposure.
One thing that should help control the Ebola virus is that it is not an airborne. That is, it does not spread the same way a cold or flu virus does through coughing or sneezing.
The deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS virus that crippled air travel throughout most of Asia back in 2003 was an airborne virus, but Ebola is not.
Potential victims of Ebola, according to the CDC, must come into direct contact with an infected person’s blood, vomit or other “bodily fluids.”
Locally both SRMC and IRMC say they continue to be in daily contact with the Florida Department of Health and the CDC and that both facilities are actively updating both training and procedures to comply with CDC guidelines.
Statewide, Florida Surgeon General Dr. John Armstrong, Division of Emergency Management director Bryan Koon and Agency for Health Care Administration secretary Elizabeth Deduk say they are ready coordinate Florida’s Ebola response should one ever be required.
