Red Status

For the first time since the pandemic began, today we moved our command center status to red.?Between rapidly rising COVID-19 cases, incredibly high censuses at all of our hospitals, remarkably high community positivity, an increasing number of admitted patients being held in our EDs for lack of beds, challenges to intra-facility transportation and discharge processes based on EMS and skilled nursing home capacity, hospitals in our region and adjacent regions constantly going on ER diversion due to their volumes and significant and ongoing staffing challenges, there is little question we are now in a different place than we’ve been the past 20 months.?To be honest, the only reason we had any trepidation about formally declaring this elevated status, is we don’t know what comes next.?We know the situation is difficult now, but what will positivity and census be in two weeks??While we hope to see improvement, we may be in an even more difficult situation and have no color beyond red.?

Regardless, by shifting to red, we are making clear to all of our teams and the community that this is different than anything we have experienced to this point and are marshalling all resources available to provide care to the community.?Additionally, this change ties to our command center dashboard that shows our status/restrictions across more than a dozen domains.?Multiple domains (think everything from transfers to surgery deferrals to work-related holiday gatherings) have been elevated to red as well.

The vast majority (86%) of our patients hospitalized (370 as of today) with COVID-19 are unvaccinated.?Even more striking is that 90% of our ICU patients and 97% of our ventilated patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated.?While we are seeing more breakthrough cases in the community, thankfully the vaccines are working exactly as we’d hoped when it comes to preventing serious hospitalization and death.?Thank you for being ambassadors to your families, friends and neighbors by continuing to educate on the importance of vaccination.

As much as I’d like to tell you what to expect in the coming days, it is hard to predict.?Our internal models show an increase in our COVID-19 inpatient census for at least the next week.?Given the sky-high positivity (rolling 7-day average of 23.7%, and remember this is only what is formally tested and doesn’t account for home testing), the colder weather driving people indoors and the coming holiday, it is hard to imagine that the situation doesn’t worsen before it gets better. Please know that we are doing everything we can to shore up and, in many cases, divert, resources to meet the need. We also are doing all we can to support our teams and also educate the public on what is really happening.?Even for those in our communities who somehow don’t believe that COVID-19 is a problem, we are making it very clear that COVID-19’s impact on our regional and state health infrastructure is affecting non-COVID care as well.

I know that so many are working so hard right now and I am so appreciative.?In particular, for those working in our Monoclonal Antibody Clinics, Urgent Cares, EDs, general hospital floors, and ICUs – thank you!?As those who work every day in health care, we often forget the jobs we do have a HUGE impact on the lives of our communities.?We come to our clinics, our hospitals or our offices working hard to care for patients or provide support for delivering that care, then we go home and we come back again the next day.?Sometimes we lose sight that we are heroes.?It’s not always glamorous and it is always hard, but it is what we do.?Again, I hate to be melodramatic, but we’ve essentially been at war with COVID for 20 months and this is the biggest battle yet. While so many are exhausted and, like me, just want this to be over, I couldn’t imagine a team or an organization more prepared or committed to fight the battle.?