MAINE, USA — Over the course of the last six months, hospitals across Maine have had the opportunity to learn and become better prepared for an influx of COVID-19 cases. As cases of the coronavirus continue to spike in York County, hospitals in that area say they feel ready to manage an increased number of inpatients who have contracted the virus.
"We're always prepared for if there are more inpatients, what we do in terms of where we'd place patients, and how we'd staff for that," Dr. Michael Albaum, chief medical officer with Southern Maine Health Care, said.
Albaum says at the beginning of the pandemic, his hospitals prepared to treat as many as 20 intensive care unit patients, and up to 90 additional inpatients.
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Albaum says right now, SMHC is currently treating between one to six patients with COVID-19 at a time, and his staff is prepared to scale up to meet the needs of the community if more outbreaks occur.
Staff at York Hospital have also been working to stay prepared over the course of the pandemic for a potential surge in patients. At the beginning of the pandemic, many hospitals had concerns about access to personal protective equipment. Infectious disease physician Dr. Gretchen Volpe says York Hospital staff are confident about their personal protective equipment (PPE) supply lines, but still keep close tabs to ensure they have adequate resources.
"I don't have any concerns at the moment. We have team members who are constantly monitoring our current supply and also investigating avenues for future supply," said Volpe.
As hospitals remain keeping close tabs on access to PPE, they are also ensuring enough access to test materials.
"We're having more patients that don't need to be hospitalized, but they are concerned that they may have COVID," Albaum said. "Or much more commonly now, they've been exposed to somebody that may have COVID and want to be tested. So we're seeing a real increase in our demand for people that want to be tested in the outpatient setting, or have symptoms and want to be evaluated in the outpatient setting."
Albaum said that his staff currently has materials to continue offering tests, but will continue to monitor access to resources. SMHC currently has the capacity to conduct roughly 200 tests per day, according to Albaum.