UPMC ‘not overwhelmed’ by COVID

Health system says its doing OK despite coronavirus outbreak

UPMC hospitals, including UPMC Altoona, are managing to handle the onslaught of coronavirus cases in the regions it serves, according to Leslie Davis, CEO of the Health Services Division, speaking at a virtual news conference Tuesday.

"We're busy, but we're not overwhelmed," Davis said. "There's no need to feel nervous or anxious."

But that doesn't mean it hasn't needed to make moves to keep things under control in the 6,000-bed system, where 20% of inpatients are being treated for COVID-19 and 25% of those are in intensive care.

Last Wednesday at Altoona, UPMC added 60 nurses, more testing equipment and ventilators, while opening up new medical beds at UPMC Somerset to create "a little valve for Altoona," Davis said, while praising the Altoona nurses, whom she called "incredible."

In other places, the organization has been reopening beds that have been out of service, adding nurses and equipment, shifting nurses from one facility to another and securing additional personal protective equipment, Davis said.

UPMC has been hiring agency and travel nurses, using part-time flex nurses full time and benefiting from those with clinical experience returning to "bedside" jobs, Davis said.

Pediatric nurses at Children's Hospital have been working with COVID-19 patients in other facilities, she said.

"A lot of people have raised their hand and said, 'This is what I do, this is what I want to do,'" Davis said.

Based on its own observations about incubation periods and now with the validation of recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, UPMC has also been able to shorten employee quarantine periods from 14 to 10 days, so workers can return more quickly, and it's exploring the possibility of seven days, said Graham Snyder, medical director for infection prevention and hospital epidemiology.

At UPMC Mercy in Pittsburgh, the organization accelerated the opening of a new intensive care unit and turned the old one into a step-down unit, adding 12 beds, Davis said.

UPMC has been able to send some patients home earlier than before by providing pulse oximeters and other supports, freeing up space in the hospital, Davis said.

And the organization has also been taking more advantage of telemedicine, according to Davis and Donald Yealy, chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine.

"It's a multi-pronged approach that really is fail-safe," Yealy said.

UPMC hasn't had to use mandatory overtime or postpone employee vacations, but "we thought about it," Davis said.

UPMC is better equipped to deal with the coronavirus now than in spring, because of additional testing, tracing, beds and personal protective equipment and because treatment advances mean fewer patients need intensive care and ventilators, Davis said.

The organization doesn't believe it will need to reduce or postpone elective surgeries and other procedures, despite a state order that those be reduced by 50 percent when certain regional triggers are met.

UPMC is preparing for COVID-19 vaccinations, Snyder said.

After the Food and Drug Administration grants an Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer vaccine, UPMC expects to get a batch, which it will use to vaccinate front line employees who want it.

After the FDA grants such an authorization for the Moderna vaccine, UPMC expects to get a batch that it will use to vaccinate long-term-care facility workers and residents, Snyder said.

Both vaccines will need to be approved first, however, by a UPMC team -- a process that shouldn't take long, Snyder said.

"I want our experts to tell us the vaccines are safe and effective to use in our communities," Snyder said.

While UPMC requires employees to get flu vaccinations, it's not requiring them to get the new COVID-19 vaccines, because those new vaccines don't have "decades of research and experience" behind them, like the flu vaccines, according to Snyder.

But everyone should get a flu shot, Yealy said.

There has been little flu so far in the region, possibly thanks to COVID-19 mitigations, but that doesn't guarantee there won't be an outbreak, Yealy said. If someone gets COVID-19 and the flu simultaneously, "that would be a difficult ride," he said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.