Hospital’s CEO says they are as prepared as they can be for this crisis
(Seguin) — The CEO of Guadalupe Regional Medical Center is speaking out about the hospital’s ability to meet the demands that could potentially be created by the COVID-19 outbreak. The novel coronavirus pandemic has hospitals all across the globe working to make sure they have the capacity and the resources to handle the surge of patients that are expected to come at various levels at each facility.
GRMC CEO Robert Haynes tells radio station KWED that they’ve spent weeks, working countless hours to make sure they were ready. He says their work really got started the first week of March, when they started to fundamentally change how they operated their facility.
“In a normal situation, a hospital or health care organization is welcoming the sick and welcoming those that need medical care. What happens in a pandemic effect is that essentially, you are protecting your resources for what is known as a surge. A surge means that at some point in a pandemic effect, you are going to get a spike greater than the resources you have to provide. So what you do is essentially stop doing things that can wait. That seems like an easy enough concept but you have to get a lot of people aligned and a lot of people on board and you have to get an organization that is built to do things, to actually stop doing some of those things and preserve the resources. That means an alignment of all the independent practioners that practice here and the organization itself as well as the work that you have to do with the whole community. That is educating the community as to what’s happening and working with the other agencies, the city, the county, law enforcement, EMS etc., ” said Haynes.
Haynes says all of that coordination came into place, and helped prepare the hospital for the potential spike in patients due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He says it’s taken a lot of work to bring all of those various pieces together.
“This organization spent probably — management and other players spent about 14 hours a day for about 21 days. Sometimes as fluid as changing processes by the hour until we reached a point probably about last Friday where we feel very comfortable that we have established limited access to the hospital to treat only those that are the sickest of the sick at this point. Those procedures that are elective and can wait are doing just that, waiting. We are fairly well prepared. We can tell you to the number days, gloves, gowns, different types of mask to fight this pandemic that allows us to treat patients called n95s — how many days on hand we have of that. We continue to look for additional resources. This is what facilities like ours and larger facilities and smaller facilities are doing all over the country,” said Haynes.
Haynes says that they are prepared, but knows things could change if the spike is higher than anticipated. That means, it’s more important than ever that people follow the advice of public health officials and stay home and away from others.
“You are never comfortable but you are prepared and I can tell you that we feel very well prepared to deal with what we hope will be a minor surge in this area. If you look at a map of the United States, you will see the large metropolitan areas that are being hit, that does not mean that it is going to affect that way across the entire country especially if we are practicing the things that we have been asked to do such as the social distancing etc.,” said Haynes.
We spoke to Haynes in the middle of last week, and he says the hospital continues to provide testing and other support at this time. He says they are trying to meet the current demands, while also making sure they have adequate supplies on hand during the peak period for the virus.
“So to this date, I can tell you that since we started testing for COVD-19, we have done 69 tests of which 48 have come back and 21 are pending, 39 are negative and nine are positive. We have about a 13 percent positive rate at this point. We have to pace ourselves to conserve what is called PPE, personal protective equipment, and not cause panic in the workforce or the community. This is something that in my 45 years of healthcare, I have never seen but I’m proud of the organization and the community for the way that it is responding to it,” said Haynes.
GRMC has been providing regular updates about how it’s staying prepared for the pandemic. That includes meeting with federal and state health officials, as well as with local officials here in Seguin. It’s also meeting regularly with STRAC, Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council, which helps to assist in providing and monitoring resources for this region. Haynes says the local staff has a good plan in place, and he explained how STRAC helps to coordinate some of the regional needs when it comes to the pandemic. He says STRAC’s work now is consistent with the other types of coordination efforts that take place during any disaster or crisis situations.
“We are definitely more familiar with this type of an event when it’s a hurricane type event. STRAC gets involved and we start working as to where patients coming from the coast are going to go. If you have major types of events, what hospitals can handle what so the communication is wired pretty tightly and those decisions are made at a central point. They are not even made at the local facilities but what STRAC has done in this case, is there is a tremendous amount of cross pollination of information that is occurring between STRAC and all the hospitals and caregivers it represents and ourselves as well as the department of health, the state of Texas and on a federal level with federal agencies to ensure supplies are going where they are needed,” said Haynes.
Last week, a member of the medical staff at GRMC said that doctors and the hospital were prepared, and that the community should know that they’ve “got this.” Haynes stopped short of saying it in those terms, but he did offer assurances, that they were in the best possible position to handle a spike in COVID-19 patients here locally.
“We have shut down what we normally do. We have placed ourselves in a position both with human resource talent and with equipment, ventilators and all types of supplies that you would need for what we are looking that what may come and the best possible position that we can place ourselves. That never means that you are ultimately, completely prepared. We are still working on plans for an alternate site for what I will call normal, everyday patients that we would use. So you are still working on worse case scenarios and hoping for the best. We are as prepared as we can be,” said Haynes.
While GRMC is ready, Haynes says he knows that getting more resources on hand, can only help with their situation. He says the community has already stepped up to help with those needs, and they welcome any additional support.
“What I’d love to see happen is for us to actually get more resources with respect to personal protective equipment. The community and business in this community have responded. We are a manufacturing community producing product for us to clean our hands etc. So some of those things are very helpful. We have community members who have actually volunteered to make masks. We’ve had masks donated to us from other parts of the community. This is specialized equipment and everybody is focused and rightfully so, they should be. The epicenter is New York. We do not expect a New York to happen here but we expect something to happen. To that extent, we feel we are ready. By the way, nobody, not even the great city of New York can be prepared for what is happening in New York,” said Haynes.
Haynes says we are all in this together, and he says he appreciates all those who have been working on this. He says everyone is working together to try to keep the public safe.
“Thank you for those that have been understanding, that can not visit their loved ones because we are protecting those loved ones with the barriers that we have created at the different entrances. No visitors unless they meet certain criteria. Thank you to the organizations that have supported the hospital, the city, the county, the fire department, the ems, the police department, the sheriff’s department. We very much appreciate them working with us and I can promise this community that the people that are working at Guadalupe Regional Medical Center and all of the physicians associated with it, this is what we are doing 24/7 is focusing on if something happens here, we are prepared to the best of our ability as we can be,” said Haynes.
GRMC issued a press release on Friday again stressing the work that continues at the hospital. Officials say GRMC continues to remain in a heightened state of preparation for the likely increase of COVID-19 cases. There are been a number of new announcements, including the creation of a Public Health Emergency Unit, or PHE Unit. The PHE is a separate unit that has been created within GRMC’s campus to care for COVID-19 patients and individuals with presumptive COVID-19 cases, whose test results are pending.
The hospital is also announcing the state’s new COVID-19 Mental Health Support Line. The Texas Health and Human Services has launched a 24/7 statewide mental health support line to help Texans experiencing anxiety, stress or emotional challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This new resource offers COVID-19-related mental health support for all Texans. People can call the Statewide COVID-19 Mental Health Support Line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week toll-free at 833-986-1919.
Haynes says that GRMC will continue to evaluate and respond to provide the best and safest care possible in these challenging times, and that additional information is available at www.grmedcenter.com.