Visalia hospital completes airflow project, improving its ability to care for COVID-19 patients
VISALIA – As Tulare County continues re-opening, the largest hospital
in the county cared for a record number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital
this week, and completed a project that will allow it to isolate up to
86 COVID-19 positive patients in the future.
“Unfortunately, as the County continues to open up and after every
holiday, we expected to see a higher outbreak rate and that’s happening,”
said Gary Herbst, Chief Executive Officer of Kaweah Delta, noting that
on Tuesday it cared for 41 COVID-19 patients in the hospital. “It’s
one of the reasons we continue to be progressive and do everything possible
to care for our community.”
Thanks to the recent completion of an airflow project, Kaweah Delta now
has 86 rooms, up from 10 at the start of the pandemic, where it can isolate
COVID-19 positive patients to prevent the spread of the virus, said Shawn
Elkin, Kaweah Delta’s Infection Prevention Manager. The project
adjusted airflow in areas of the hospital used as COVID-19 units and met
Occupational Safety and Health Administration and National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health standards.
“What we’re doing is protecting the people who are outside
of the room. We draw the air from the hallway into the patient room, filter
it and exhaust it outdoors,” Elkin said.
The project also consisted of turning rooms into airborne infection isolation
rooms, which comply with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s
definition of an isolation room and function as negative air pressure
rooms. Several of these rooms opened on Kaweah Delta’s newly opened
fifth and sixth floors of the Acequia Building.
These rooms will not only help Kaweah Delta better care for the community
by isolating COVID-19 patients, but also in the event of outbreaks of
other highly contagious viruses.
“They are really a good alternative in this situation and can be
useful even in a measles epidemic,” Elkin said. “With COVID-19
it is thought that every case results in 2.5 additional cases, but for
measles, every case results in 16-18 additional cases. It’s the
world’s most infectious disease.”
Kaweah Delta continues with antibody testing for its team and to date,
it has tested 1,910 employees, physicians, and residents with only 58
testing positive for the antibodies. An antibody test, or a serology test,
screens for antibodies in the blood, not the COVID-19 virus. A person’s
body makes antibodies when it fights an infection. The test shows Kaweah
Delta who was exposed to COVID-19 and had the virus, even if they did
not have symptoms.
“To have only had 58 of the 1,910 is pretty interesting,” said
Herbst, noting that it’s been proven that if you take this antibody
test 14 days after a person contracts the virus, then it has almost a
100 percent accuracy rate. “I was thinking that the number of positive
cases would probably be a lot higher, but then of the those 600 elective
surgery cases we have done since we started doing them again, only two
people tested positive for the virus. It shows there is a tremendous amount
of our population out there that has never contracted it.”
As more people continue to venture out as the county re-opens, Kaweah Delta
continues to encourage safety in the community, asking people to follow
safe practices to prevent the spread of COVID-19:
- Wash hands often with soap and water or hand sanitizer
- Maintain social distancing (6 feet apart)
- Wear face masks
- Clean/disinfect frequently-touched surfaces
- Monitor for symptoms of illness (fever, cough, difficulty breathing, loss
of taste or smell, or GI problems, etc.)
For those with symptoms who are unable to be seen by their doctor, they
can call (559) 624-4110, Kaweah Delta’s free COVID-19 hotline. It
allows an individual with COVID-19 symptoms, to schedule a same-day appointment
with a nurse practitioner. Kaweah Delta shares COVID-19 information and
regular updates with the community on its website at
www.kaweahdelta.org/COVID19 and on its social media accounts.
#