BOISE, Idaho — COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the Gem State are increasing and it's leaving fewer hospital beds available and more staff members working around the clock at St. Luke's.
The health system announced a temporary pause on some elective inpatient surgeries and other procedures that require an overnight hospital stay.
"Overall quality of care cannot be as good when the team's providing the care and the system they work in are under this sort of stress and strain," Dr. Jim Souza, the chief physician executive at St. Luke’s, said
Souza explained that current COVID-19 case trends are looking worse than they did back in December and January.
The latest numbers from the Idaho Division of Public Health show 267 people are hospitalized from COVID-19 and 89 are in the ICU.
As of Thursday, he reported St. Luke's also has 197 staff members out, with 103 of those having a positive coronavirus diagnosis."
St. Luke's is trying to keep up with the crowded hospitals as best as the health professionals can. Souza mentioned the health system has opened a new unit on the Boise campus and is offering more incentives to staff who are able to take on additional work.
"They're already fatigued, but they're creating backups to their backups to their backup coverage plans," Souza said. "Meaning that they are ready to cancel needed time away to come in and care for more patients.
There will be no schedule elective surgeries from August 9 through 20 at St. Luke's Magic Valley, and August 16 through 27 at St. Luke's Treasure Valley locations. Souza said doing this will save the hospitals about 60 admissions each week and create more capacity.
"These are people who need surgeries," Souza explained. "These aren't surgeries being done as a convenience. We're creating another backlog."
As the September deadline for all St. Luke's employees to get the vaccine approaches, Souza said there is worry they will lose people and add to the health system's current strain on staff. He said the health system has 35 events to meet with employees to discuss and help them with their decision within the next two weeks.
Before the mandate was announced, St. Luke's had about 79% of staff vaccinated and had about 3,000 workers who were not. Since the announcement, about 400 employees have gotten vaccinated.
He reiterated the decision to mandate the vaccine for employees is for patient and staff safety. Souza said healthcare is different than other businesses since the staff takes an oath to put patients' needs first and do no harm.
"I just want to remind everybody that just because a decision is hard doesn't mean it's not right," Souza said. "In fact, making the hard decision is sometimes the right decision."
Souza said the current operations are not sustainable. He referenced other areas of the U.S. are already beginning to ration care.
St. Luke's is no stranger to accepting neighboring states' transfer patients, like Utah or eastern Oregon. What startles Souza is St. Luke's has gotten calls from other hospitals this last week asking to place patients from the Oregon coast to Oklahoma.
"It's becoming a multi-regional and national capacity for care challenge," Souza said.
There is also a growing concern for Souza looking at other pediatric care around the country. He said the U.S. does not have a lot of extra capacity built into pediatric inpatient infrastructure, which goes the same for the Gem State. Idaho only has one pediatric ICU in the state, which only has 12 available beds open as of Thursday.
However, Idaho is not seeing ICU pediatric patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at check-in as of now.
Besides easing up the strain on hospital employees, Souza hopes the pause in elective surgeries will give people the perspective of what is going on around the country and the solution to help fix it.
Souza pleaded for people to listen to health officials. and asked people, who are able, to get the vaccine and continue wearing a mask until COVID-19 cases are under control.
"We're the same healthcare providers and leaders who have provided care to Idaho for decades," Souza said. "We're the ones who have been here for you, who will be here for you."
Saint Alphonsus does not have any plans to pause non-emergent and non-time-sensitive care but could address capacity concerns in the future.
Saint Alphonsus has also received three transfer patients from hospitals in surrounding states in the last few weeks. It is unclear if they are COVID-19 patients.
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