UPMC adjusts as COVID cases fall
Several units return to pre-pandemic use
A week and a half ago, five of the six local counties were at a high level for COVID-19 — with Blair County at medium, according to a newly established scale from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Tuesday, only Huntingdon County remained in the high category, with Centre and Clearfield at medium and Blair, Bedford and Cambria low — a shift that reflects the ebbing of the omicron variant.
UPMC Altoona and the three other regional UPMC hospitals with which it is grouped have accordingly adjusted operations to account for the pandemic’s easing.
As of Tuesday, there were only 23 COVID-19 inpatients in UPMC’s Altoona, Bedford, Somerset and Western Maryland hospitals, said Kitty Zelnosky, chief nursing officer and vice president of patient care services at UPMC Altoona and Bedford.
“We saw a sharp decline in the last two weeks,” Zelnosky said in a phone interview. “It allowed us to return several COVID units to normal uses.”
UPMC Altoona bore the brunt of the COVID surge among the UPMC facilities in the region, with the hospital’s COVID population the highest in the whole UPMC system at times, according to Zelnosky.
To accommodate the surge, UPMC Altoona created two dedicated COVID units, one for patients needing intensive care and one for those who didn’t. There were also several other areas of the hospital that housed COVID patients, with the help of temporary floor-to-ceiling walls that helped seal those areas off, according to Zelnosky.
The walls not only helped protect other patients but also employees, according to Zelnosky.
Workers have removed the temporary walls, she said.
Before COVID, there were four ICU units: a medical, a surgical-trauma and a neurovascular unit on the eighth floor and a cardio-thoracic unit on the sixth floor, according to Zelnosky.
Because of COVID, the hospital established a fifth ICU for medical patients on the seventh floor.
COVID patients needing intensive care mainly went to medical ICU areas.
Many COVID patients whose cases were less problematic went to a unit on the sixth floor.
The COVID peak for UPMC Altoona was between November 2020 and January 2021, Zelnosky said.
There was a lesser rise from late fall last year to early January.
Patient volumes have also decreased in the Emergency Department, according to Zelnosky.
In the fall, the Altoona ER was frequently overwhelmed, with waits for service many hours long at times.
The hospital cited short staffing as a primary cause and struggled to hire the needed workers.
Despite the pandemic easing, the hospital continues to recruit staff.
That began even before COVID.
“I think every hospital in the world is recruiting,” Zelnosky said.
She was reluctant to declare that the pandemic was going away for good.
“No one truly knows,” she said.
People should stay vigilant, and be prepared to take protective measures when warranted, she said.
UPMC is grateful for the services of all its employees during the pandemic, Zelnosky said.
The specifics of the CDC’s low-medium-high categorization of counties depend on the number of new cases and new COVID admissions in the past week, proportional to population; and the percentage of available inpatient beds occupied by COVID patients.
The level of recommended mitigations depends on a county’s COVID level.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.