Gritman Medical Center is one of the healthcare centers that could fall under the activation of crisis standards of care in Idaho.
On Sept. 7 the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare activated CSC in response to Kootenai Health in Coeur d’Alene. However, hospitals in the Public Health – Panhandle Health District and the North Central Health District can implement CSC according to their policies.
“Gritman is very safe for care, it is open for care,” Peter Mundt said. “Our services are open as they usually are.”
Mundt is the director of community relations and marketing at Gritman Medical Center.
“At Gritman, we are not yet in crisis standards of care, we hope to not have to go there,” Mundt said. “We’re currently what’s called contingent levels of care.”
The IDHW defines what crisis standards of care are and explained what each level entails. There are conventional, contingency and crisis.
Conventional care is when usual hospital operations run as normal supplies and space available as needed. Crisis care sees non-patient areas being used and extreme operation conditions. Contingency care falls between the two, and that is what Gritman is seeing now.
“We’ve been in contingent levels of care for some time with restriction on staffing, availability of beds, availability of supplies,” Mundt said. “We’ve been in that zone for many, many months and we’ve been operating as best we can.”
A press release from Gritman discusses how the hospital has established a dedicated COVID-19 care unit. These have reached capacity on several occasions within the past few weeks.
“Our COVID-19 unit at Gritman is a combination of some critical care beds and our ICU, and a combination of other med surge beds,” Mundt said.
Mundt also said that the number of beds isn’t the main focus, but the shortage of healthcare workers.
“That’s true for Gritman, that’s true for every hospital in the region, and every hospital in the country,” said Mundt. “We do our best on a day-to-day level to monitor what is our capacity to provide care and then we stage our facility for care and the COVID-19 unit based on that.”
Gritman is not at capacity at the moment. However, Mundt points out that this changes day to day as it is reported to the state.
Mundt emphasized testing availability at Gritman and what the community needs to know.
“Testing at Gritman Medical Center COVID drive thru testing site requires a physician’s order because of the surge of cases we’re seeing,” Mundt said.
Those seeking a non-medical essential COVID-19 test requirement should call the Idaho 211 care line.
“Anyone in Idaho can call 211 careline and request an at home COVID-19 test kit that will be sent to their home,” Mundt said. “That allows the healthcare system, hospitals like Gritman and other hospitals around the region to focus care, focus testing and assessment on the patients who need it the most.”
With the medical reserve crop, people with expired or elapsed medical licenses could be relicensed to help during the COVID-19 crisis.
“The state has worked through a fast-track process to get health professionals relicensed and to be able to assist and respond to the crisis,” Mundt said. “Non-clinical citizens who may want to be a part of helping out, they can also register through that website.”
Hospitals in the districts can call on the state to request volunteers for numerous reasons. This medical reserve crop is there to help provide relief to the system, allowing hospitals to provide proper care to the patients.
Another way to help, Gritman recommends that the public receive the vaccine to protect the community.
“As a health care community, we have made it very clear that vaccines and those choosing to get vaccinated is the way out of the pandemic,” Mundt said. “It is the way to provide yourself the greatest possible protection. The vaccine has been proven to be very effective in preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and preventing death.”
Updates from the center can be found on Gritman’s website.
Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @DVR_Tweets