The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Nuvance Health plans for next virus outbreak
DANBURY — As Connecticut families return to civic life after an unprecedented public health crisis, frontline hospitals are planning for the next battle against the coronavirus.
The CEO of Nuvance Health said while Connecticut’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak deserves credit for preventing more death and suffering, work is underway to incorporate lessons from the two-month battle for the next coronavirus surge, expected later this year.
“We want to know if there’s a way to be more efficient, more compassionate and more inclusive in the way we respond in our nursing homes, and our prisons, and the poor and marginalized in our community by addressing their needs earlier,” Dr. John Murphy said. “Along with the state’s reopening strategy, we are looking at making testing more available, assisting with contact tracing, and working hard to see what can be done to develop a vaccine and participate in clinical trials.”
Nuvance is planning its response for the next COVID-19 outbreak as the stategets used to the idea that the worst of the first coronavirus surge is behind it.
As of Thursday, more than 39,000 people in
Connecticut have been sickened by the highly contagious virus, and more than 3,500 have died.
Although Nuvance hospitals in Danbury, Norwalk and nearby New York continue to treat about 200 coronavirus patients, that number is significantly smaller than a month ago, when infections were surging at such a rate that hospitals weren’t sure whether they’d have enough beds to treat everyone.
“Despite the tragic loss of life, we were able to treat nearly 2,000 COVID patients in our health system, and we never ran out of capacity, ventilators or PPE,” Murphy said of Nuvance’s seven hospitals. “Our employees did an outstanding job.”
Murphy added he was grateful and relieved that earlier concerns about being overwhelmed have subsided. However, there’s plenty of new uncertainty to be concerned about.
One concern is the fiscal health of the year-old Nuvance Health system — one of the big three health networks in Connecticut — which lost $200 million fighting COVID-19. Although federal relief and Nuvance’s philanthropic fund will offset some expenses, the network stands to lose $75 million when its budget year ends in September, Murphy said.
The hope is that by resuming elective surgery that was suspended during the COVID-19 surge, Nuvance hospitals will begin to recover some of their revenue.
“We have to be in decent financial shape so that if we into another urgent situation, we can respond to it,” Murphy said.
For now, the focus at
Nuvance and other hospitals is getting back to the new normal, with visitation restrictions, patient testing, employee screening and new infection prevention protocols.
The field hospitals built by the National Guard in Danbury and Sharon have come down, and medical supplies at Western Connecticut State University’s O’Neill Center have been moved to a warehouse. The 220 beds at the O’Neill Center were not needed during the infection surge, because Connecticut residents slowed the spread of the virus through quarantining, social distancing, and mask-wearing, Murphy said.
But Murphy’s concern is that most people have not been exposed to the virus.
“When you look at the prevalence studies in terms of antibody testing, the level of immunity is 5 to 10 percent,” Murphy said. “That means 90 percent of the population has not yet had exposure, and the virus will have opportunities to find a host.”