Sept. 28, 2020

Sioux Falls hospitals are experiencing what leaders called a big surge in patients, though not an unprecedented one.

It’s a combination of COVID-19 patients – there were 209 hospitalized statewide as of Monday’s report – and patients who are seeking other care, including some that was deferred earlier this year because of the pandemic, leaders of both Avera and Sanford Health said.

“We’re accustomed to dealing with surges of patients and working through that process. We’re seeing a big one right now. We’re working through it,” said Dr. Mike Wilde, vice president and chief medical officer of Sanford USD Medical Center.

“Usually when school starts, it will be a little bit of a lull, and then things start to ramp up a little bit, and now we’re seeing that in the setting of a pandemic.”

The system had expected to see more COVID-19 patients with a return to school and more gatherings, “but the numbers from a COVID standpoint are really in the manageable range,” he said. “We’re prioritizing patients, moving them around, working with our great partners in the rural facilities as well, trying to get care as best and quality and safe to home as possible.”

Avera has reached a point where as some patients are discharged, other patients are waiting to be admitted in their place, but “pre-COVID it wouldn’t be unusual for us” to be in that situation, said Dr. Dave Basel, vice president of clinical quality for Avera Medical Group.

“We’ve been building for 25 years to hit standardization across our 37 hospitals, so we share a common electronic medical record, radiology, processes, procedures, even physicians will go back and forth, so most of our cases can be handled at any one of those 37 facilities.”

Neither hospital is at a point where elective procedures are going to be discontinued as they were earlier this year, both said.

However, “hospital beds are not an infinite resource,” Basel added.

“We’re very comfortable with where we are right now. We’ve got capacity. We can shift around capacity within the system. If numbers do continue to escalate, that could be a problem sooner rather than later.”

Both urged businesses to review their internal policies and procedures around how employees should handle exposures, caring for others at home and their interactions at work.

While personal protective equipment and other infection-control measures are keeping health care workers from being exposed on the job, some still have been out sick or having to isolate because of interactions in a lunch room or within the community.

“We see those vulnerabilities as humans within this community,” Wilde said, adding businesses can refer to state and federal health guidelines as they form their policies.

Employers should be mindful of things such as break room policies, social distancing within the workplace and encouraging employees to stay home with any signs of symptoms, Basel said.

“We’ve all been conditioned so long to work through those symptoms, it’s just a cold or whatever, and time and time again we’ve seen some of those people are going to end up having COVID with just mild symptoms, and they’ve taken out a whole swatch of people,” he said.

“We will come to a point, if it keeps escalating like this, that we will have to make harder decisions about things like elective procedures. We’re not there at this point, but anything we can do to keep a lid on this, to keep everybody’s business open, keep the economy going, is good.”

As individuals, remember not to let hygiene habits slip, don’t let your guard down around best practices, and get a flu shot, Wilde encouraged.

“Be patient. Hang in there,” he said. “We have people working really hard for you, and we’re going to keep doing that.”