■ AdventHealth has 20% of ICU beds still available, extends Centra Care hours for testing.
AdventHealth has kicked into gear its readiness plans for a potential surge of COVID-19 patients, but it still has enough capacity, officials said during a Facebook Live briefing on Thursday morning.
Daryl Tol, president and CEO of AdventHealth’s Central Florida Division, said the health system has about 20% of its ICU beds and 16% of all beds still available across seven counties and 16 campuses.
“To put that in context, that’s normal. Our health system — many health systems in Florida, operate in this range of capacity on a regular basis,” Tol said. “The growth of COVID is something we’re paying attention to but the capacity level is still within a manageable range for us.”
His comments came as the state, one of the nation’s coronavirus hot spots, reported 8,935 new cases Thursday, for a total of 232,718. It also reported 120 new fatalities — the most yet — to push the death toll past 4,000, to 4,009. The latest positivity rate, at 18.39%.
Hospitalizations are also the highest on record.
To date, 17,167 people have been hospitalized, Florida’s COVID-19
dashboard shows, 409 more than a day earlier — a record jump for one 24-hour period and the first time over 400 hospitalizations have been recorded in one day. The number doesn’t show how many people are currently hospitalized for COVID-19.
Florida is outpacing the field in new cases and hospitalizations, which have both been on a steady, upward climb. Experts say the double-barred trend could also cause Florida’s low death rate to rise in the coming weeks.
In preparation for more cases, Tol said the AdventHealth system has moved from a normal — or green — level to yellow, or level 2, a readiness position.
“You would be in a level 2 position if you expect for a surge to continue and capacity to be challenged,” Tol said.
He said AdventHealth has a healthy supply of personal protective equipment and ventilators and its doctors and nurses are more experienced in managing COVID-19 patients than a few months ago.
“We have space plans. We’ve created surge plans that allow us to add thousands of additional beds if needed in a real crisis situation,” said Tol.
Orlando Health, the other major health system in Central Florida, also says it has enough capacity and can meet the needs of all patients.
Across Central Florida on Thursday afternoon, Orange County has 19% ICU availability, Seminole has 4%, Lake has 17% and Osceola has 7% ICU availability.
The biggest issue at AdventHealth is staffing, Tol said.
“When you add all that space, when you add all those beds… where do you get the staff and that’s what we’re working on now,” said Tol.
Those efforts include lease agreements for staffing groups to bring in providers from health systems in areas that are less challenged and the hiring of temporary and permanent staff.
He said if the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to grow, the health system might once again scale back elective procedures.
As of Thursday morning, AdventHealth Orlando’s ICU, which with 191 beds, is the largest in Central Florida, had a 21% capacity. Some of the health system’s smaller ICUs were at full capacity, according to a Agency for Health Care Administration dashboard.
Tol said there’s a caveat to the numbers.
“ICU beds actually are flexible. We can add ICU beds. We can add considerable numbers of ICU beds. We have surge plans, our health system and other health systems around the state have surge plans that allow us to take new spaces or transform beds into ICU beds,” he said.
He stressed that hospitals and doctors’ offices are safe to seek care for conditions other than COVID-19.
“We’re very fearful based on what we saw in April and May — of people with heart attacks and strokes and serious health-care needs avoiding the emergency room, staying home, they might die or have permanent impairments from that,” said Tol.
Dr. Scott Brady, an internal medicine physician and president of AdventHealth Centra Care, said more people are going to the urgent care centers to get tested, and AdventHealth is planning to expand its testing capability for the public.
“A few weeks ago, at the urgent care [centers], we were testing about 3,500 [people] a week. Now we’re testing 20,000 a week and we’re making plans to double that in the next week or two,” said Brady.
He said there are plans to extend the Centra Care centers’ hours to meet the demand for testing. Tiffini Theisen contributed to this report. Got tips about health care, testing or medical bills? You can reach me at nmiller@orlando sentinel.com. Call, text, Signal: 321-710-7947; Twitter @NaseemMiller.