Central Ohio Hospitals Would Share Care In Event Of Ebola Outbreak

Central Ohio hospital executives announced, Wednesday, their action plan in the event of an Ebola outbreak in the area. Executives from Columbus’ three major health systems say care would be a shared responsibility in the event people are diagnosed with Ebola. Here’s how the plan would work: If someone goes to an emergency room with Ebola-like symptoms, they would be isolated at that facility until test results came back from the Ohio Department of Health. If the results are positive, the patient would be transported to one of three designated hospitals for treatment. The first five patients would go to The Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University. Ohio Health would take the next five. And Mount Carmel is the third treatment option. OSU Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Andrew Thomas said dividing up the care among the systems would reduce exhaustion of services, not just doctors and nurses but equipment. “We need to be careful not to stretch those folks too thin. We talked about equipment, to make sure we don’t stretch our equipment too thin. And also space. We want to make sure we’re providing this care in a space that’s safe, that’s going to protect the caregivers, protect family members so that we’re not propagating the problem," he said. Thomas added spreading out the care would "[give] our organization a chance to take a deep breath and be prepared to move forward. If we get to patient 16 we would be prepared by then.” Ohio Health and Mount Carmel could not say at this time which of their hospitals will be selected to provide care. Thomas said the three hospitals combined, though, could treat up 30 adults at a time. Nationwide Children’s would take child cases. While there are no suspected cases of Ebola in Ohio at this time, and there have been no confirmed cases to be treated in Ohio, Ohio Health Chief Medical Officer Bruce Vanderhoff said this Ebola outbreak plan could be used in other scenarios. “Imagine an influenza epidemic like in 1917. This preparation that we’re going for Ebola is the kind of preparation that we can extend to any number of infectious diseases that could affect our community in the future.”