Prisma Health to open COVID-19 recovery units at 3 hospitals to free up ICU beds
Prisma Health will open COVID-19 recovery units at three of its hospitals in what the health system said could serve as a national model for handling patient surges in the months ahead.
The recovery units, which will operate at Prisma’s Laurens County, Tuomey (Sumter County) and Baptist (Richland County) hospitals, will be available for any hospital in the state that wishes to transfer lower-need COVID-19 patients during a surge in admissions that stretches their internal capacity.
“Shifting these patients to dedicated regional recovery units will help healthcare systems fully utilize their local hospital intensive care unit beds and staffing for patients in need of higher acuity care — whether due to COVID-19 or other medical needs,” Prisma Health spokeswoman Tammie Epps said in a statement.
Patients transferred to the regional recovery units will receive care from Prisma Health staff, contract staff provided by the South Carolina Emergency Management Division and South Carolina National Guard soldiers.
Karen Lommel, the Prisma physician leading the initiative, said the health system currently plans to operate the recovery units through the end of March or beginning of April, but would be able to extend the time frame if hospitals remain overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.
The number of COVID-19 inpatients statewide peaked at 2,466 on Jan. 13, but has dropped about 12% since then and remains on a slow, but steady decline, according to state health data.
“We are cautiously optimistic, as it does appear that we’re heading in the right direction,” Saria Saccocio, a physician who co-chairs Prisma’s COVID-19 vaccine task force, said during a conference call Wednesday. “We’re beginning to see a decrease in the hospitalizations compared to what we had 2-3 weeks ago.”
Two of Prisma’s regional recovery units are already operational and the third could open as soon as next week, Epps said.
Approximately 125 nurses, respiratory therapists, clinicians and support personnel, including 20 National Guardsmen, will assist Prisma staff in operating the three initial regional recovery units.
Prisma’s initial COVID-19 recovery unit fully opened Monday on the third floor of Laurens County Hospital and has been serving as a step-down unit for Prisma Health facilities. The unit, which recently doubled in size thanks to additional contract staffing provided by the Emergency Management Division, now has 29 beds.
The Tuomey Hospital recovery unit in Sumter opened Wednesday as a 12-bed unit, but could expand to 24 beds if necessary and as staffing becomes available, Epps said.
The third recovery unit, which could open as early as next week at Baptist Hospital in Columbia, will have 12 beds to start, but could eventually triple in size, if the need arises.
Prisma chose which hospitals would house the units based on need, geography and an area’s rate of COVID-19 infection. The initial recovery unit in Laurens County was ideal because it straddled the state’s Upstate and Midlands regions — where rates of coronavirus have been highest in recent months — and allowed for easier patient transfers, Lommel said.
Prisma is also planning a fourth recovery unit in the Upstate, as necessary, but did not provide details on its location.
The regional recovery unit model, which was developed in concert with SCEMD, the National Guard, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control and the South Carolina Hospital Association, could potentially be replicated elsewhere in the state and across the country in response to any natural disaster, health care officials said.
“Really the bigger picture and many of the conversations we’ve had with the Emergency Management Division is how this will set us up for a future natural disaster,” Lommel said, citing hurricane and tornado evacuations as examples. “We’ll be ready to pivot on a dime and get this ready.”
This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 12:59 PM.