Capital Region doctors provide update
ALBANY, N.Y. » Doctors from hospitals across the Capital Region briefed the public Tuesday afternoon at Albany Medical Center, on their efforts to combat COVID-19.
The doctors touched on issues involving elective surgeries, PPE supplies, staffing protocols, and surge capabilities.
“As of today, other than surgeries that need to be performed because of threatening life or limb, we have cut back dramatically on elective or what we call non- essential surgery,” Dr. Ferdinand Venditti, of Albany Medical Center, remarked on the policy re
garding elective surgical procedures.
On the topic of PPE, Dr. Venditti notes they’ve been tracking the supply for more than two months now.
“I can tell you today at the time being and for the foreseeable future, we have enough PPE for our staff to safely provide care for our patients. We continue to look for alternate sources. Our buyers are really scouring the country and frankly
the world to try and find these necessary supplies and will continue to do that,” Dr. Venditti said.
In addition, Dr. Venditti explained the hospital is only accepting masks proven to protect staff, as opposed to the homemade cloth variety.
“Any masks at this point that people want to donate should be surgical grade or procedure grade or frankly any N- 95 masks if any of our colleagues in dental offices etc. have those, donating them to the acute care hospitals represented here would be enormously help
ful,” Dr. Venditti implored for the extra masks.
Dr. Venditti also detailed the protocol they’re instituting to keep staff safe and spread out if possible.
“We are limiting the number of staff on campus and off-site locations where appropriate. We’ve also instituted a twice- daily selfmonitoring of staff,” Dr. Venditti noted.
“So we want them to think about symptoms that they have, respiratory symptoms that might be related to COVID-19 and we want them to take their temperature,” Dr. Venditti added on the hospital procedure.
To that end, Dr. Venditti explained that any employee with a temperature greater than 100 degrees or displaying symptoms of COVID-19, would be immediately masked, sent to their manager for further evaluation. That staff member would then likely be moved off-site in order to protect other staff and patients in stemming the spread of the virus.
Illustrating the seriousness of the pandemic, Dr. Steven Hanks of St. Peter’s Health Partners voiced the need for an increase in beds and ICU beds in the event of a surge of patients.
“There are still people who feel that perhaps we’re overreacting. I would like to point back to the governor’s announcement a little over a week ago about the projections of beds and ICU beds in the event of a
peak based on the worstcase scenario projections,” Dr. Hanks stated.
“In those projections, the governor said in New York state at the peak we would need somewhere on the order of about May 1, across the state 110,000 at the worst case, hospital beds, and up to 37,000 ICU beds,” Dr. Hanks explained on the need for more beds if that worst- case scenario comes to fruition.
Dr. Hanks then outlined their capabilities related to hospital beds.
“We currently have 53,000, less than half that number of hospital beds and even fewer, just under 3,400 ICU beds,” Dr. Hanks said of what would be available at a peak.
As of now, Hanks notes they have 702 acute care beds across their entire system and are able to double that to 663 additional beds with extent facilities, meaning not outside a hospital setting in a hotel or gym for example. Plus, they presently have the ability to
more than triple ICU beds from 48 to 150
In order to meet those needs, Hanks added they are altering their care model to “team- based care.” That entails shifting staff from outpatient to inpatient, along with adding retired workers and healthcare workers from outside the state.
“In this region, our number of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 has gone up by 33 percent in just the last 24 hours,” Dr. Hanks said.
“These plans are not histrionics, they’re not panic, this is timely attention to necessary detail in order to assure the public that we can provide our sacred mission of our ability to care for them,” Dr. Hanks added on their preparation moving forward.
Echoing the sentiment of the seriousness to stop the spread, Dr. David Liebers of Ellis Medicine reiterated how everyone in the community can do their part to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, with the pause ini
tiative.
“The pause initiative is basically understanding that this is human to human transmission. Simply put, the less interactions our community has with each other, the better we can slow down the transmission,” Dr. Liebers explained.
“All the preparation we’re making here is going to be helped by our community. By the community adhering to the governor’s recommendations, no non- essential travel, minimizing outside the house, working from home,” Dr. Liebers continued.
“In addition, the simple stuff, hand hygiene, cough hygiene, staying home when sick, all of that is going to help slow the transmission rate, flatten that curve and make it better for all of us as our healthcare system will be able to more smoothly absorb the expected increased number of patients,” Dr. Liebers added on how people can help lessen the burden on the healthcare system.