The number of health care workers ordered to self-quarantine because of potential coronavirus exposure is rising at a rapid rate — which could leave the health care system short-staffed and overwhelmed.
Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, is among those arguing hospitals need to change course.
While hospitals are supposed to be prepared for just such a situation, Nuzzo says, their plans often fall short."Absent any imminent public health crisis, it may not be one of their priorities," she says. From 2003 to 2019, federal funding for the Hospital Preparedness Program in the U.S.
The Vacaville case offers stark insight into the fallout from the narrow testing protocols initially established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When a woman was admitted to NorthBay VacaValley Hospital with respiratory symptoms on Feb. 15, dozens of hospital workers walked in and out of her room performing daily tasks.
Yet providers don't often think in those terms."In many ways we're spoiled because we've gone from a society 50 or 100 years ago where the major killers were infectious disease," says Dr. Michael Wilkes, a professor at UC Davis School of Medicine."Now we've become complacent because the major killers are heart disease and diabetes."
Anyone arriving at a Sutter emergency room with signs of a respiratory infection is given a mask and sequestered."A runny nose and a cough doesn't tell you much. It could be a cold, it could be a flu, and in this weather it could be allergies," says Dr. Bill Isenberg, Sutter's chief quality and safety officer. A doctor or nurse in protective equipment — including N95 mask, gown and goggles — is deployed to assess the patient's symptoms.
Not all hospitals are adapting so quickly. National Nurses United, a union representing more than 150,000 nurses, recently held a news conference to call on hospitals to better protect their workers. Of the 6,500 nurses who participated in a survey the union circulated, fewer than half said they had gotten instruction in how to recognize and respond to possible cases of COVID-19.
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