BOISE, Idaho — In a press briefing Tuesday, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare listed criteria for when the state is able to exist crisis standards of care.
This includes no longer using non-traditional spaces to care for patients, large hospitals having the capacity to transfer critical patients from smaller hospitals, returning to normal nurse-to-patient and doctor-to-patient ratios, and performing previously postponed surgeries.
The largest hospital system in the state - St. Luke's Health System - is starting to meet these criteria, according to St. Luke's Senior Vice President Sandee Gehrke.
"We have been able to go back a little bit to normal operations," Gehrke said.
Gehrke named around 15 non-traditional spaces used to care for patients off the top of her head in a media call Thursday; however, the demand for these overflowing spaces has lessened. Only two of those spaces are still in use.
This has allowed staff members to return to their normal workspaces. As result, it's created normal nurse-to-patient and doctor-to-patient ratios.
St. Luke's said their ratios have remained strong throughout the pandemic, but some in-patient workers were transferred from other departments to fill the need. This is no longer the case on a large scale, according to Gehrke.
"We're still caring for a higher number of patients than we're used to caring for, but we're doing that with our traditional patient staff,' Gherke said.
Allowing staff to return to traditional roles has opened up the possibility of performing previously postponed surgeries. St. Luke’s postponed these surgeries in the first place because the hospital system needed all hands on deck to manage the surge of COVID-19 cases.
St. Luke's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Frank Johnson estimated more than 5,000 surgeries have been postponed.
"Getting caught up on those is going to take some time. It could take 6 months to get caught up on some of those procedures," Dr. Johnson said.
As availability begins to open back up, St. Luke's adds they can transfer in critical patients in need of their care on a case-by-case basis. Previously, larger hospitals were relying on smaller hospitals to take patients and share the load.
"Today those transfer avenues are closer to begin back to normal, I'd say," Gherke said.
COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and ICU patients have trended down since late September. And while St. Luke's is seeing some of the benefits, Idaho is still in statewide crisis standards of care.
Health and Welfare will ultimately decide when the state is adept to exit statewide crisis standards of care.
At KTVB, we’re focusing our news coverage on the facts and not the fear around the virus. To see our full coverage, visit our coronavirus section, here: www.ktvb.com/coronavirus.
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