Business

Camden Clark Medical Center weighing services amid COVID spike

PARKERSBURG -- The WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center in Parkersburg is looking at how it performs its needed services as local COVID-19 numbers are on the rise.

Gov. Jim Justice announced Monday elective surgeries will be limited due to shrinking bed capacity at state hospitals due to the rise in cases of COVID-19 across West Virginia.

After consulting with hospital leaders around the state and the West Virginia Hospital Association, Justice announced the measures after officials were becoming more concerned that hospitals might become overrun.

State and hospital leaders are allowing elective surgeries that do not require an overnight stay. The hope is to make more beds available for patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms.

Officials at Camden Clark have a surge plan in place that includes a proactive approach to managing elective surgeries.

The CCMC surge plan's purpose is to maximize the hospital's capability to handle an increase in patient census, critical care demands, ventilator requirements, and workforce challenges resulting specifically from this COVID pandemic, said Christine Daniels, the hospital's Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer.

"The plan addresses increasing the critical care capacity, COVID inpatient bed capacity, PPE availability, and the clinical care capacity as our inpatient census increases," she said. "The plan also addresses when to begin reducing elective inpatient surgery cases.

"During the first COVID surge in the spring, we had no more than 17 COVID positive inpatients at one time. We have seen as high as 57 COVID positive inpatients. Our surge plan was developed with input from physician leaders, clinical management, and WVU Medicine support. The plan continues to be adjusted based on our COVID experience and activity," she said.

Certain surgical cases requiring an inpatient stay can be delayed, Daniels said. The hospital's Department of Surgery physician leaders have adopted the American College of Surgeons guidelines for surgical case review due to the hospital capacity constraints, she added.

"We are working with our surgeons and Operating Room Leadership to assess if cases need to be canceled in order to free up beds or make staffing available for the higher COVID population," Daniels said. "This week we began reducing cases due to capacity constraints due to both bed and staff constraints."

Daniels said the surge plan will be in place for as long as it is needed. They are making decisions daily to balance access, staffing, and safety for all patients with an emphasis on the growing COVID positive patient base.

"COVID positive admissions are markedly up and are stressing hospitals in their ability to handle the increases," she said. "Having an ongoing and robust surge plan has helped us make appropriate decisions, including our recent reduction of inpatient surgeries.

"Over the past several weeks, CCMC has reached available bed capacity or staffing capacity."

The medical center has increased its dedicated COVID unit from one to three units. It has utilized Charleston's St. Francis Hospital COVID Transitional Unit to manage some of the COVID surges.

"We have brought quite a few traveler nurses to help with staffing," Daniels said. "The COVID patient population has been as high as 75 percent on critical care units and 30 percent of (emergency department) visits and inpatient census.

"We are expecting these volumes to double by mid-January."

Daniels said Camden Clark is not currently at capacity, but is continuing to see increases in COVID positive patients.

"Health officials expect this trend to continue at least through the first of the year," she said. "This is why we have a comprehensive surge plan in place.

"Proactive planning helps us manage the situation to ensure capacity and availability of necessary care for those throughout our communities, and to ensure that those requiring the higher level of care available through WVU Medicine Camden Clark can access that care when needed."

Even with COVID on the rise, people still get hurt, people are still having heart attacks and other problems that have to be addressed.

"While CCMC is seeing an increase in COVID positive patients, all services remain available to meet our patients' needs," Daniels said.

There have been times when the hospital has had to send patients to other facilities. Officials at Marietta Memorial Hospital said they have received patients from West Virginia when other local hospitals were unable to.

MMH do not have a surgery mandate in place, but officials are meeting daily to evaluate appropriate surgeries and capacity as well as assess available resources.

CCMC has found it necessary to go on ambulance diversion in recent weeks due to staffing or critical care bed capacity, Daniels said.

"When we are on diversion, we still take care of trauma and cardiac emergencies," she said. "We also put a hold on transfers from other facilities.

"We let the regional hospitals know when we go on diversion and when we come off. We appreciate the regional hospitals for the care and increased patient load they pick up in these circumstances, as we know this can be a burden for them as well."

Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com