WVU Healthcare announced Friday the
completion of its Ebola preparedness Infection Prevention and Containment Unit
at Ruby Memorial
Hospital in Morgantown
The five isolation patient rooms,
self-contained lab and areas for staff to put on and take off bio-hooded safety
gear cost the hospital $500,000.
WVU Healthcare’s Ebola Task Force has
been working on the secured area of the Emergency Department for the last few
months. The equipment, procedures now in place and the secure ventilation
system of the unit are based on recommendations and protocols being used at
Emory University Hospital and the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where
Ebola patients have already been treated.
“We basically said, ‘Who’s gotten it
right? How did they do it, that’s what we want to do,” explained Dr. Owen
Lander, medical director of the WVU Healthcare Emergency Department.
According to the Ebola Task Force
members, 70 to 100 medical staff volunteers have trained under Centers for
Disease Control recommendations to safely treat potentially infected patients
and protect themselves and other emergency room patients from contracting the
disease.
“The team that worked on this was
phenomenal. We got it all completed so that we’re now ready to treat the
patients should anyone show up,” said Scott Bierer, the director of WVU
Healthcare Facilities Engineering and Management.
Medical staff procedures to protect
themselves are in place. Roger Osbourn, director of safety, WVU HealthCare,
said the donning and doffing process alone takes multiple people and at least
20 minutes before treating a patient and after treating a patient.
“Staff would come into the clean side.
We would have a donning partner in here to help ensure the person gets the
equipment on appropriately,” Osbourn said. “We also have a very detailed
checklist that the donning partner would go through to check off that the
employee got the protection on the proper way.”
The IPCU is located within the existing
emergency department at Ruby.
The designated area within the hospital will be used for
screening, management and treatment of potential patients.
